"Monads, monads!" exclaimed the Candidate.
"Monads or nomads," answered angrily Mrs. Gunilla, "it is all one—be so good as to let my cotton alone, I want it myself—your nomads may be as magnificent and as mighty as they please, and they may govern themselves, and may live and strive according to their own wisdom; yet I cannot see how the world, for all that, can be in the least the more regular, or even one little grain the more pleasant, to look at. And why are things so bad here? Why, precisely for this very reason, because you good people fancy yourselves such powerful monads, and think so much of your own strength, without being willing to know that you are altogether poor sinners, who ought to beseech our Lord God to govern their poor nomadic souls, in order that they might become a little better. It is precisely such nomadic notions as these that we have to thank for all kind of rapscallion pranks, for all uproars and broken windows. If you had only less of nomads, and more of sensible men in you, one should live in better peace on the earth."
The Candidate was quite confounded; he had never been used to argument like this, and stared at Mrs. Gunilla with open mouth; whilst little Pyrrhus, excited by the warmth of his mistress, leapt upon the table, and barking shrilly seemed disposed to spring at the Candidate's nose. All this appeared so comic, that Elise could no longer keep back the merriment which she had felt during the former part of the dispute, and Jacobi himself accompanied her hearty laugh. Mrs. Gunilla, however, looked very bitter; and the Candidate, nothing daunted, began again.
"But, in the name of all the world," said he, "your Honour will not understand me: we speak only of a mode of observing the world—a mode by which its phenomena can be clearly expounded. Monadology, rightly understood, does not oppose the ideas of the Christian religion, as I will demonstrate immediately. Objective revelation proves to us exactly that the subject-objective and object-subjective, which——"
"Ah!" said Mrs. Gunilla, throwing herself back, "talk what nonsense you will for me, I know what I know. Nomads may be just what they please for me: but I call a man, a man; I call a cat, a cat, and a flower, a flower; and our Lord God remains to me our Lord God, and no nomad!"
"Monad, monad!" cried the Candidate, in a sort of half-comic despair; "and as for that word, philosophy has as good a right as any other science to make use of certain words to express certain ideas."
During the last several minutes suspicious movements had been heard at the parlour door, the cause of which now became evident; the children had stolen in behind the Candidate, and now cast beseeching glances towards their mother that she should let all go on unobserved. Petrea and Eva stole in first, carrying between them a heavy pincushion, weighted with lead, five pounds in weight at least. The Candidate was standing; and at the very moment when he was doing his best to defend the rights of philosophy, the leaden cushion was dropped down into his coat-pocket. A motion backwards was perceptible through his whole body, and his coat was tightly pulled down behind. A powerful twitching showed itself at the corners of his mouth, and a certain stammering might be noticed in his speech, although he stood perfectly still, and appeared to observe nothing; while the little rascals, who had expected a terrible explosion from their well-laid train, stole off to a distance; but oh, wonder! the Candidate stood stock-still, and seemed not at all aware that anything was going on in his coat-laps.
All this while, however, there was in him such a powerful inclination to laugh that he hastened to relate an anecdote which should give him the opportunity of doing so. And whether it was the nomads of Mrs. Gunilla which diverted him from his system, or the visit of the little herd of nomads to his pockets, true it is there was an end of his philosophy for that evening. Beyond this, he appeared now to wish by cheerful discourse to entertain Mrs. Gunilla, in which he perfectly succeeded; and so mild and indulgent was he towards her, that Elise began to question with herself whether Mrs. Gunilla's mode of argument were not the best and the most successful.
The children stood not far off, and observed all the actions of Jacobi. "If he goes out, he will feel the cushion," said they. "He will fetch a book! Now he comes—ah!"
The Candidate really went out for a book from his room, but he stepped with the most stoical repose, though with a miserably backward-pulled coat, through the astonished troop of children, and left the room.