We started up again, and I had ascended the first steps when I felt something crush under my foot; I stopped to see what it could be, and at that moment perceived a white object before me.  It was a torn sheet of paper.  As for the hard object, which I had felt grinding up, I recognized it as a sort of glazed earthenware jug.

“Aha!” I said to myself; “this may clear up the burgomaster’s story.”

I rejoined Hans Goerner, who was now waiting for me at the edge of the pit.

“Now, sir,” cried he, “where would you like to go?”

“First, let’s sit down for a while.  We shall see presently.”

I sat down on a large stone, while the rural guard cast his falcon eyes over the village to see if there chanced to be any trespassers in the gardens.  I carefully examined the glazed vase, of which nothing but splinters remained.  These fragments presented the appearance of a funnel, lined with wool.  It was impossible for me to perceive its purpose.  I then read the piece of a letter, written in an easy running and firm hand.  I transcribe it here below, word for word.  It seems to follow the other half of the sheet, for which I looked vainly all about the ruins: 

“My micracoustic ear trumpet thus has the double advantage of infinitely multiplying the intensity of sounds, and of introducing them into the ear without causing the observer the least discomfort.  You would never have imagined, dear master, the charm which one feels in perceiving these thousands of imperceptible sounds which are confounded, on a fine summer day, in an immense murmuring.  The bumble-bee has his song as well as the nightingale, the honey-bee is the warbler of the mosses, the cricket is the lark of the tall grass, the maggot is the wren—­it has only a sigh, but the sigh is melodious!

“This discovery, from the point of view of sentiment, which makes us live in the universal life, surpasses in its importance all that I could say on the matter.

“After so much suffering, privations, and weariness, how happy it makes one to reap the rewards of all his labors!  How the soul soars toward the divine Author of all these microscopic worlds, the magnificence of which is revealed to us!  Where now are the long hours of anguish, hunger, contempt, which overwhelmed us before?  Gone, sir, gone!  Tears of gratitude moisten our eyes.  One is proud to have achieved, through suffering, new joys for humanity and to have contributed to its mental development.  But howsoever vast, howsoever admirable may be the first fruits of my micracoustic ear trumpet, these do not delimit its advantages.  There are more positive ones, more material, and ones which may be expressed in figures.

“Just as the telescope brought the discovery of myriads of worlds performing their harmonious revolutions in infinite space—­so also will my micracoustic ear trumpet extend the sense of the unbearable beyond all possible bounds.  Thus, sir, the circulation of the blood and the fluids of the body will not give me pause; you shall hear them flow with the impetuosity of cataracts; you shall perceive them so distinctly as to startle you; the slightest irregularity of the pulse, the least obstacle, is striking, and produces the same effect as a rock against which the waves of a torrent are dashing!