经典！《喀尔巴阡古堡，牛博士》让无数读者意犹未尽！(8)

Did they meet in some public edifice? If so, did not "work well," as Commissary Passauf put it. On change, at the town-hall, in the amphitheatre of the Academy, at the sessions of the council, as well as at the discussions of the savants, a strange excitement seized upon all present. At the end of an hour they were on bad terms. In two hours the discussion degenerated into an angry dispute. Heads became heated, and personalities were exchanged. Even at church, during the sermon, the faithful could not listen patiently to Van Stabel, the minister, and he threw himself about in the pulpit and lectured his flock with far more than his usual severity. At last this state of things brought about altercations more grave, alas! than that between Custos and Schut, and if they did not require the interference of the authorities, it was because the antagonists, after returning home, found there, in its peace, forgetfulness of the offences given and taken.
This remarkable fact could not be observed by those concerned; they were absolutely incapable of recognising what was happening to them. One person alone in the town, he whose office the council had thought of suppressing for thirty years, Michael Passauf, had noticed that this excitement, which was absent from private houses, appeared at once in the public buildings; and he asked himself, not without a certain anxiety, what would happen if this infection should ever develop itself within the family mansions, and if he epidemic- this was the word he used—should extend through the streets of the town. Then there would be no more forgetfulness of insults, no more tranquillity, no break in the delirium; but a permanent inflammation, which would inevitably bring the Quiquendonians into collision.