"And is this your latest creed?" asked Truyn indignantly.
"It is a very time-honoured creed, uncle," said Georges, "if I am not mistaken it was the fundamental article of faith of that lugubrious Solomon in a full-bottomed wig, who played such unholy pranks in France, under Voltaire's reign. 'Apres nous le déluge!'"
"Louis Fifteenth, do you mean?" asked Truyn.
But Pistasch observed, "You have become fearfully erudite while you have been abroad, Georges. I fancy you are preparing to apply for a professorship of history, in the event of the social cataclysm that seems at hand."
All the while the train is rushing onwards, past pastures seamed by narrow ditches, past turnip-fields, past villages with ragged thatched roofs, and tumble-down picket fences upon which red and blue garments are hanging to dry, while lolling over them are sunflowers, with yellow haloes encircling their black velvet faces. Nowhere is there a trace of romantic exuberance, everything tells of sober, practical thrift.
A white, dusty road winds among slender plum-trees, and along it is jolting a small waggon, drawn by a pair of thirsty dogs, their tongues hanging from their mouths; a labourer, half through his swath in a clover-field, fascinated by the whizzing train, stops mowing and stares with open mouth and eyes.
Truyn has become absorbed in the contents of 'The Press' which he holds stretched wide in both hands. Oswald, Georges, and Pistasch have improvised a table out of a wrap laid across their knees, and are indulging in a game of cards.
"What's the news, uncle?" Oswald asked as he shuffled the cards.
"The authorities have forbidden the importation of rags at any Austrian port; and a Jew has been butchered somewhere in Russia," Pistasch replied incontinently. Truyn paid no heed to Oswald's question but all at once he dropped the newspaper.
"What is the matter?" asked the young men.