Page:Stories Translated from the German.djvu/205

 order of things, that a witty, curious French lady, who was by no means averse to investigations, should seek the acquaintance of this celebrated professor, and should desire to hear him explain his system, as well as her little knowledge of German, and his indifferent bad French, would allow. She was witty, lively in conversation, never fatigued or visionary, and a successor of De Staël, who first directed the attention of her self-satisfied countrymen to our Germany, as to some land in which much might be discovered, like in the far distant India, or in some fabulous region of which the perfectly accomplished Franks had never even dreamt. It was, therefore, extremely troublesome to the young widow, Madame Deschamps, when she was listening with unbounded faith, and was swallowing in, both with eyes and ears, the metaphysics of the instructive professor, that her mouth was compelled to laugh at the bad French of the Evangelist, whilst her mind was lost in admiration. But it was still worse, when suddenly (as it sometimes happens to artificial cascades in beautiful parks, that the forced water ceases to flow, and a melancholy and disagreeable silence ensues) the excited teacher was obliged to hold his