Page:Stories Translated from the German.djvu/219

 imagine that you were enchanted and bewitched; for this conduct cannot be explained in a natural manner."

The minister now read the other letter, and with a cheerful countenance and firm voice, as it contained nothing but friendship, politeness, and the most refined flattery. When he was nearly at the conclusion, the savant placed his hand upon the paper, and exclaimed, his countenance glowing with rage; "Now, I beg of you distinctly to pronounce aloud this unparalleled stupidité."

"Are you then,"—said the minister (and could not at first regain his voice for laughing.) "Why here it stands quite plain; cette profondeur à une sagacité sans exemple." The German professor took the letter with trembling hands, he looked and read, and read and looked again; his companions examined it likewise, as though it it had been written in strange characters in some half worn out manuscript, and the French lady laughing aloud, clapped her little white hands, and exclaimed, in the cheerful tone of a self-willed child:

"How could you read stupidité, instead of sagacité? You, a learned man, and all your friends?"