II

fathers, that influence us, and will influence our children. The peasant lying prone on the head of his one mare (which not only constitutes the whole of his wealth, but is almost one of his family) and gazing with faith and horror at Polikéy’s frowning look of importance and thin arms with upturned sleeves, as, with the healing rag or a bottle of vitriol between his teeth, the latter presses the sore place and boldly cuts into the living flesh (with the secret thought, “The one-eyed brute will never get over it!”) and at the same time pretending to know where there is blood and where matter, which is a tendon and which a vein⁠—that peasant cannot conceive that Polikéy has lifted his hand to cut, without due knowledge. He himself could not have done it. And once the thing is done, he will not reproach himself with having given permission to cut unnecessarily. I don’t know about you, but I have experienced just the same with the doctor, who in obedience to my request was tormenting those dear to me. The lancet, the whitish bottle of sublimate, and the words, “the staggers⁠—glanders⁠—to let blood or matter,” etc. , do they not come to the same thing as “nerves, rheumatism, organism,” etc. ? Wage du zu irren und zu träume does not refer to poets so much as to doctors and veterinary surgeons.