Djernis valley. It might have been fancied that the mountains were celebrating their coming of age, or that the wild Djernis itself was going to lead home a young bride. The stone Hercules, whose club was wreathed with roses for the occasion, must have been carried back in memory to the time of Roman triumphs.
Needless to say that in the department of amusements Dr Kokovics held complete sway. He revelled in garlands and paper-scrolls; his fertile brain teemed with fireworks and colossal illuminations. For at least a week before the great day his dreams were exclusively of rockets and Chinese lanterns.
The learned men came, one dusty forenoon; fifty learned men with forty pair of spectacles between them. Geologists principally; but they had brought their friends with them, disciples of various sciences. They smiled at the flower-arches, nodded at the streamers, and pretended they could read the inscriptions; after which they proceeded to refresh themselves with a bath. They then ate an excellent dinner, laid out for them in the Cursalon, while the galleries above were crowded with spectators who wished to see what science looked like at food. A great many toasts were drunk, and in different languages. There was a flowery French speech, and an excited Italian speech; a nasal speech pronounced by an American, whom Mr Howard had repeatedly and indignantly to repudiate as a countryman; then a furious German got to his feet and hammered out a few angular sentences to the effect that idleness was the mother of mischief, and that everybody must work, work, work, if they wanted to get on in this world. After which he sat down, wiping the perspiration from his streaming forehead, and savagely helped himself to roast-turkey and salad.
Red wine flowed uninterruptedly; and the fifty learned men, as well as some others, notably Dr Kokovics, were in a very jovial humour when they emerged from the Cursalon. There was then a stroll along the river, in the interest of science; the Roman inscriptions were read by a few, and pronounced interesting. One learned man went the length of chipping off a corner of a stone with his iron-shod stick, and observing that the fragment was marble. Then came the saunter back, and the prospect of the fireworks; and next day the learned men would drive back the way they came, fully persuaded that the interests of science had been greatly furthered by their visit to the Hercules Valley.
One of the learned men, on his return from the river-side, made his way up to the Mohrs' apartments to pay his respects to a friend and colleague.
"Well, Steinwurm," said Adalbert, with a faint smile, "you don't see me much more advanced than I was in May."
"On the contrary, on the contrary," ejaculated the musty-fusty Herr Steinwurm, with his parchment-skin and his fossil smile – "I hardly expected to find you so well. One of our learned medical friends whom I met the other day was quite surprised to hear that you were still alive. I think it disappointed him," added Steinwurm, by way of a joke; for the floods of red wine, though they had not sufficed to wash away the cobwebs of antiquity, had yet raised the historian's spirits almost to the level of cheerfulness.
"Anything new at home?" asked Adalbert.
