Then Jurgen mounted this horse and rode away from the plowed field
wherein nothing grew as yet. As they left the furrows they came to a
signboard with writing on it, in a peculiar red and yellow
lettering.

Jurgen paused to decipher this.

"Read me!" was written on the signboard: "read me, and judge if you
understand! So you stopped in your journey because I called,
scenting something unusual, something droll. Thus, although I am
nothing, and even less, there is no one that sees me but lingers
here. Stranger, I am a law of the universe. Stranger, render the law
what is due the law!"

Jurgen felt cheated. "A very foolish signboard, indeed! for how can
it be 'a law of the universe', when there is no meaning to it!" says
Jurgen. "Why, for any law to be meaningless would not be fair."




6.

Showing that Sereda Is Feminine


Then, having snapped his fingers at that foolish signboard, Jurgen
would have turned easterly, toward Bellegarde: but his horse
resisted. The pawnbroker decided to accept this as an omen.