[CHAPTER XXV.]
PANTAGRUEL FINDS PANURGE, WHOM HE LOVES ALL HIS LIFE.
One day Pantagruel was strolling outside the city-walls towards the Abbey St. Antoine. While engaged in philosophical talk with his own people, and several students besides, he happened to see, coming along the road, a young man of fine height and handsome presence, who looked so bloody and so woebegone, and whose clothes hung around him in such tatters and rags, that he seemed to have barely escaped with his life from a pack of mad dogs. As soon as his eyes fell upon the man, Pantagruel said to his attendants:—
"Do you see that man yonder, coming from Charanton Bridge? By my faith, he is poor only in fortune. As far as I can judge by his features, Nature has given that man a rich and noble lineage."
When the stranger had come up to them, Pantagruel said to him: "My good friend, I beg you to stop a moment, and answer a few questions which I am about to ask you. You will not repent it if you do so, as I feel a strange desire to aid you in the distress in which I see you, for you excite my pity. Before all, my friend, tell me who you are? Where do you come from? What do you seek? And what is your name?"
The stranger then answered him:—
In German—
To which Pantagruel, not knowing a single word, replied:—
"My friend, I don't quite understand this gibberish. If you want us to get at your meaning, speak to us in another language."