Fling aside all your vain delusions! Enlarge your
boundaries, round off your estate, heap up money, and then you will be
honoured and respected! You will be a burgomaster as your uncle was
before you, and the country folks, when they see you coming a mile off,
will pull off their hats, and say--'Here is Monsieur Caspar Haas, the
richest man and the biggest _herr_ in the country.'"
These notions kept passing and repassing in my mind like the figures in a
magic-lantern, with grave and measured step. The whole thing seemed to me
perfectly reasonable.
It was the middle of July. The lark was warbling in the sky. The crops
were waving in the plain, the gentle breezes carried on them the soft cry
of the quail and the partridge amongst the standing wheat; the foliage
was glancing in the sunshine, and the Lauter ran its course beneath the
willows; but what was all that to me, the great burgomaster? I puffed up
my cheeks and rounded off my figure in anticipation of the portly
appearance I was to present, and repeated to myself those delightful
observations--
"This is Monsieur Caspar Haas; he is a very rich man! He is the first
_herr_ in the country! Get on, Blitz!"
And the nag trotted forward.
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