+------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in | | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+

[Illustration: "NO, MY LITTLE ANGEL! DON'T BE AFRAID!"]

BOUVARD AND PÉCUCHET

_A TRAGI-COMIC NOVEL OFBOURGEOIS LIFE_

BY

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

_VOLUME IX. _

SIMON P. MAGEEPUBLISHERCHICAGO, ILL. 

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY

M. WALTER DUNNE

_Entered at Stationer's Hall, London_

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. PAGE KINDRED SOULS 1

CHAPTER II. EXPERIMENTS IN AGRICULTURE 26

CHAPTER III. AMATEUR CHEMISTS 72

CHAPTER IV. RESEARCHES IN ARCHÆOLOGY 123

CHAPTER V. ROMANCE AND THE DRAMA 163

CHAPTER VI. REVOLT OF THE PEOPLE 191

CHAPTER VII. "UNLUCKY IN LOVE" 228

CHAPTER VIII. NEW DIVERSIONS 242

ILLUSTRATIONS

 FACING PAGE"NO, MY LITTLE ANGEL! DON'T BE AFRAID!" (Seepage 238) _Frontispiece_

MUTUALLY BECOMING AFFLICTED, THEY LOOKED ATTHEIR TONGUES 90

HE WAS ABOUT TO CLASP HER IN HIS ARMS 234

BOUVARD AND PÉCUCHET

CHAPTER I. 

KINDRED SOULS. 

As there were thirty-three degrees of heat the Boulevard Bourdon wasabsolutely deserted. 

Farther down, the Canal St. Martin, confined by two locks, showed in astraight line its water black as ink. In the middle of it was a boat, filled with timber, and on the bank were two rows of casks. 

Beyond the canal, between the houses which separated the timber-yards, the great pure sky was cut up into plates of ultramarine; and under thereverberating light of the sun, the white façades, the slate roofs, andthe granite wharves glowed dazzlingly. In the distance arose a confusednoise in the warm atmosphere; and the idleness of Sunday, as well as themelancholy engendered by the summer heat, seemed to shed around auniversal languor. 

Two men made their appearance. 

One came from the direction of the Bastille; the other from that of theJardin des Plantes. The taller of the pair, arrayed in linen cloth, walked with his hat back, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and his cravat inhis hand. The smaller, whose form was covered with a maroon frock-coat, wore a cap with a pointed peak. 

As soon as they reached the middle of the boulevard, they sat down, atthe same moment, on the same seat. 

In order to wipe their foreheads they took off their headgear, eachplacing his beside himself; and the little man saw "Bouvard" written inhis neighbour's hat, while the latter easily traced "Pécuchet" in thecap of the person who wore the frock-coat. 

"Look here!" he said; "we have both had the same idea--to write ournames in our head-coverings!"

"Yes, faith, for they might carry off mine from my desk. "

"'Tis the same way with me. I am an employé. "

Then they gazed at each other. Bouvard's agreeable visage quite charmedPécuchet. 

His blue eyes, always half-closed, smiled in his fresh-coloured face. His trousers, with big flaps, which creased at the end over beavershoes, took the shape of his stomach, and made his shirt bulge out atthe waist; and his fair hair, which of its own accord grew in tinycurls, gave him a somewhat childish look. 

He kept whistling continually with the tips of his lips. 

Bouvard was struck by the serious air of Pécuchet. One would havethought that he wore a wig, so flat and black were the locks whichadorned his high skull. His face seemed entirely in profile, on accountof his nose, which descended very low. His legs, confined in tightwrappings of lasting, were entirely out of proportion with the length ofhis bust. His voice was loud and hollow. 

This exclamation escaped him:

"How pleasant it would be in the country!"

But, according to Bouvard, the suburbs were unendurable on account ofthe noise of the public-houses outside the city. Pécuchet was of thesame opinion. Nevertheless, he was beginning to feel tired of thecapital, and so was Bouvard. 

And their eyes wandered over heaps of stones for building, over thehideous water in which a truss of straw was floating, over a factorychimney rising towards the horizon. Sewers sent forth their poisonousexhalations. They turned to the opposite side; and they had in front ofthem the walls of the Public Granary. 

Decidedly (and Pécuchet was surprised at the fact), it was still warmerin the street than in his own house. Bouvard persuaded him to put downhis overcoat. As for him, he laughed at what people might say about him. 

Suddenly, a drunken man staggered along the footpath; and the pair begana political discussion on the subject of working-men. Their opinionswere similar, though perhaps Bouvard was rather more liberal in hisviews. 

A noise of wheels sounded on the pavement amid a whirlpool of dust. Itturned out to be three hired carriages which were going towards Bercy, carrying a bride with her bouquet, citizens in white cravats, ladieswith their petticoats huddled up so as almost to touch their armpits, two or three little girls, and a student. 

The sight of this wedding-party led Bouvard and Pécuchet to talk aboutwomen, whom they declared to be frivolous, waspish, obstinate. In spiteof this, they were often better than men; but at other times they wereworse. In short, it was better to live without them. For his part, Pécuchet was a bachelor. 

"As for me, I'm a widower, " said Bouvard, "and I have no children. "

"Perhaps you are lucky there. But, in the long run, solitude is verysad. "

Then, on the edge of the wharf, appeared a girl of the town with asoldier, --sallow, with black hair, and marked with smallpox. She leanedon the soldier's arm, dragging her feet along, and swaying on her hips. 

When she was a short distance from them, Bouvard indulged in a coarseremark. Pécuchet became very red in the face, and, no doubt to avoidanswering, gave him a look to indicate the fact that a priest was comingin their direction. 

The ecclesiastic slowly descended the avenue, along which lean elm treeswere placed as landmarks, and Bouvard, when he no longer saw thepriest's three-cornered head-piece, expressed his relief; for he hatedJesuits. Pécuchet, without absolving them from blame, exhibited somerespect for religion. 

Meanwhile, the twilight was falling, and the window-blinds in front ofthem were raised. The passers-by became more numerous. Seven o'clockstruck. 

Their words rushed on in an inexhaustible stream; remarks succeeding toanecdotes, philosophic views to individual considerations. Theydisparaged the management of the bridges and causeways, the tobaccoadministration, the theatres, our marine, and the entire human race, like people who had undergone great mortifications. In listening to eachother both found again some ideas which had long since slipped out oftheir minds; and though they had passed the age of simple emotions, theyexperienced a new pleasure, a kind of expansion, the tender charmassociated with their first appearance on life's stage. 

Twenty times they had risen and sat down again, and had proceeded alongthe boulevard from the upper to the lower lock, each time intending totake their departure, but not having the strength to do so, held back bya kind of fascination. 

However, they came to parting at last, and they had clasped each other'shands, when Bouvard said all of a sudden:

"Faith! what do you say to our dining together?"

"I had the very same idea in my own head, " returned Pécuchet, "but Ihadn't the courage to propose it to you. "

And he allowed himself to be led towards a little restaurant facing theHôtel de Ville, where they would be comfortable. 

Bouvard called for the _menu_. Pécuchet was afraid of spices, as theymight inflame his blood. This led to a medical discussion. Then theyglorified the utility of science: how many things could be learned, howmany researches one could make, if one had only time! Alas! earningone's bread took up all one's time; and they raised their arms inastonishment, and were near embracing each other over the table ondiscovering that they were both copyists, Bouvard in a commercialestablishment, and Pécuchet in the Admiralty, which did not, however, prevent him from devoting a few spare moments each evening to study. Hehad noted faults in M. Thiers's work, and he spoke with the utmostrespect of a certain professor named Dumouchel. 

Bouvard had the advantage of him in other ways. His hair watch-chain, and his manner of whipping-up the mustard-sauce, revealed the greybeard, full of experience; and he ate with the corners of his napkin under hisarmpits, giving utterance to things which made Pécuchet laugh. It was apeculiar laugh, one very low note, always the same, emitted at longintervals. Bouvard's laugh was explosive, sonorous, uncovering histeeth, shaking his shoulders, and making the customers at the door turnround to stare at him. 

When they had dined they went to take coffee in another establishment. Pécuchet, on contemplating the gas-burners, groaned over the spreadingtorrent of luxury; then, with an imperious movement, he flung aside thenewspapers. Bouvard was more indulgent on this point. He liked allauthors indiscriminately, having been disposed in his youth to go on thestage. 

He had a fancy for trying balancing feats with a billiard-cue and twoivory balls, such as Barberou, one of his friends, had performed. Theyinvariably fell, and, rolling along the floor between people's legs, gotlost in some distant corner. The waiter, who had to rise every time tosearch for them on all-fours under the benches, ended by makingcomplaints. Pécuchet picked a quarrel with him; the coffee-house keepercame on the scene, but Pécuchet would listen to no excuses, and evencavilled over the amount consumed. 

He then proposed to finish the evening quietly at his own abode, whichwas quite near, in the Rue St. Martin. As soon as they had entered heput on a kind of cotton nightgown, and did the honours of his apartment. 

A deal desk, placed exactly in the centre of the room causedinconvenience by its sharp corners; and all around, on the boards, onthe three chairs, on the old armchair, and in the corners, werescattered pell-mell a number of volumes of the "Roret Encyclopædia, ""The Magnetiser's Manual, " a Fénelon, and other old books, with heaps ofwaste paper, two cocoa-nuts, various medals, a Turkish cap, and shellsbrought back from Havre by Dumouchel. A layer of dust velveted thewalls, which otherwise had been painted yellow. The shoe-brush was lyingat the side of the bed, the coverings of which hung down. On the ceilingcould be seen a big black stain, produced by the smoke of the lamp. 

Bouvard, on account of the smell no doubt, asked permission to open thewindow. 

"The papers will fly away!" cried Pécuchet, who was more afraid of thecurrents of air. 

However, he panted for breath in this little room, heated since morningby the slates of the roof. 

Bouvard said to him: "If I were in your place, I would remove myflannel. "

"What!" And Pécuchet cast down his head, frightened at the idea of nolonger having his healthful flannel waistcoat. 

"Let me take the business in hand, " resumed Bouvard; "the air fromoutside will refresh you. "

At last Pécuchet put on his boots again, muttering, "Upon my honour, youare bewitching me. " And, notwithstanding the distance, he accompaniedBouvard as far as the latter's house at the corner of the Rue deBéthune, opposite the Pont de la Tournelle. 

Bouvard's room, the floor of which was well waxed, and which hadcurtains of cotton cambric and mahogany furniture, had the advantage ofa balcony overlooking the river. The two principal ornaments were aliqueur-frame in the middle of the chest of drawers, and, in a rowbeside the glass, daguerreotypes representing his friends. An oilpainting occupied the alcove. 

"My uncle!" said Bouvard. And the taper which he held in his hand shedits light on the portrait of a gentleman. 

Red whiskers enlarged his visage, which was surmounted by a forelockcurling at its ends. His huge cravat, with the triple collar of hisshirt, and his velvet waistcoat and black coat, appeared to cramp him. You would have imagined there were diamonds on his shirt-frill. His eyesseemed fastened to his cheekbones, and he smiled with a cunning littleair. 

Pécuchet could not keep from saying, "One would rather take him for yourfather!"

"He is my godfather, " replied Bouvard carelessly, adding that hisbaptismal name was François-Denys-Bartholemée. 

Pécuchet's baptismal name was Juste-Romain-Cyrille, and their ages wereidentical--forty-seven years. This coincidence caused them satisfaction, but surprised them, each having thought the other much older. They nextvented their admiration for Providence, whose combinations are sometimesmarvellous. 

"For, in fact, if we had not gone out a while ago to take a walk wemight have died before knowing each other. "

And having given each other their employers' addresses, they exchanged acordial "good night. "

"Don't go to see the women!" cried Bouvard on the stairs. 

Pécuchet descended the steps without answering this coarse jest. 

Next day, in the space in front of the establishment of MM. DescambosBrothers, manufacturers of Alsatian tissues, 92, Rue Hautefeuille, avoice called out:

"Bouvard! Monsieur Bouvard!"

The latter glanced through the window-panes and recognised Pécuchet, whoarticulated more loudly:

"I am not ill! I have remained away!"

"Why, though?"

"This!" said Pécuchet, pointing at his breast. 

All the talk of the day before, together with the temperature of theapartment and the labours of digestion, had prevented him from sleeping, so much so that, unable to stand it any longer, he had flung off hisflannel waistcoat. In the morning he recalled his action, whichfortunately had no serious consequences, and he came to inform Bouvardabout it, showing him in this way that he had placed him very high inhis esteem. 

He was a small shopkeeper's son, and had no recollection of his mother, who died while he was very young. At fifteen he had been taken away froma boarding-school to be sent into the employment of a process-server. The gendarmes invaded his employer's residence one day, and that worthywas sent off to the galleys--a stern history which still caused him athrill of terror. Then he had attempted many callings--apothecary'sapprentice, usher, book-keeper in a packet-boat on the Upper Seine. Atlength, a head of a department in the Admiralty, smitten by hishandwriting, had employed him as a copying-clerk; but the consciousnessof a defective education, with the intellectual needs engendered by it, irritated his temper, and so he lived altogether alone, withoutrelatives, without a mistress. His only distraction was to go out onSunday to inspect public works. 

The earliest recollections of Bouvard carried him back across the banksof the Loire into a farmyard. A man who was his uncle had brought him toParis to teach him commerce. At his majority, he got a few thousandfrancs. Then he took a wife, and opened a confectioner's shop. Sixmonths later his wife disappeared, carrying off the cash-box. Friends, good cheer, and above all, idleness, had speedily accomplished his ruin. But he was inspired by the notion of utilising his beautifulchirography, and for the past twelve years he had clung to the same postin the establishment of MM. Descambos Brothers, manufacturers oftissues, 92, Rue Hautefeuille. As for his uncle, who formerly had senthim the celebrated portrait as a memento, Bouvard did not even know hisresidence, and expected nothing more from him. Fifteen hundred francs ayear and his salary as copying-clerk enabled him every evening to take anap at a coffee-house. Thus their meeting had the importance of anadventure. They were at once drawn together by secret fibres. Besides, how can we explain sympathies? Why does a certain peculiarity, a certainimperfection, indifferent or hateful in one person, prove a fascinationin another? That which we call the thunderbolt is true as regards allthe passions. 

Before the month was over they "thou'd" and "thee'd" each other. 

Frequently they came to see each other at their respective offices. Assoon as one made his appearance, the other shut up his writing-desk, andthey went off together into the streets. Bouvard walked with longstrides, whilst Pécuchet, taking innumerable steps, with his frock-coatflapping at his heels, seemed to slip along on rollers. In the same way, their peculiar tastes were in harmony. Bouvard smoked his pipe, lovedcheese, regularly took his half-glass of brandy. Pécuchet snuffed, atdessert ate only preserves, and soaked a piece of sugar in his coffee. One was self-confident, flighty, generous; the other prudent, thoughtful, and thrifty. 

In order to please him, Bouvard desired to introduce Pécuchet toBarberou. He was an ex-commercial traveller, and now a purse-maker--agood fellow, a patriot, a ladies' man, and one who affected the languageof the faubourgs. Pécuchet did not care for him, and he brought Bouvardto the residence of Dumouchel. This author (for he had published alittle work on mnemonics) gave lessons in literature at a young ladies'boarding-school, and had orthodox opinions and a grave deportment. Hebored Bouvard. 

Neither of the two friends concealed his opinion from the other. Eachrecognised the correctness of the other's view. They altered theirhabits, they quitting their humdrum lodgings, and ended by diningtogether every day. 

They made observations on the plays at the theatre, on the government, the dearness of living, and the frauds of commerce. From time to time, the history of Collier or the trial of Fualdès turned up in theirconversations; and then they sought for the causes of the Revolution. 

They lounged along by the old curiosity shops. They visited the Schoolof Arts and Crafts, St. Denis, the Gobelins, the Invalides, and all thepublic collections. 

When they were asked for their passports, they made pretence of havinglost them, passing themselves off as two strangers, two Englishmen. 

In the galleries of the Museum, they viewed the stuffed quadrupeds withamazement, the butterflies with delight, and the metals withindifference; the fossils made them dream; the conchological specimensbored them. They examined the hot-houses through the glass, and groanedat the thought that all these leaves distilled poisons. What theyadmired about the cedar was that it had been brought over in a hat. 

At the Louvre they tried to get enthusiastic about Raphael. At the greatlibrary they desired to know the exact number of volumes. 

On one occasion they attended at a lecture on Arabic at the College ofFrance, and the professor was astonished to see these two unknownpersons attempting to take notes. Thanks to Barberou, they penetratedinto the green-room of a little theatre. Dumouchel got them tickets fora sitting at the Academy. They inquired about discoveries, read theprospectuses, and this curiosity developed their intelligence. At theend of a horizon, growing every day more remote, they perceived thingsat the same time confused and marvellous. 

When they admired an old piece of furniture they regretted that they hadnot lived at the period when it was used, though they were absolutelyignorant of what period it was. In accordance with certain names, theyimagined countries only the more beautiful in proportion to their utterlack of definite information about them. The works of which the titleswere to them unintelligible, appeared to their minds to contain somemysterious knowledge. 

And the more ideas they had, the more they suffered. When a mail-coachcrossed them in the street, they felt the need of going off with it. TheQuay of Flowers made them sigh for the country. 

One Sunday they started for a walking tour early in the morning, and, passing through Meudon, Bellevue, Suresnes, and Auteuil, they wanderedabout all day amongst the vineyards, tore up wild poppies by the sidesof fields, slept on the grass, drank milk, ate under the acacias in thegardens of country inns, and got home very late--dusty, worn-out, andenchanted. 

They often renewed these walks. They felt so sad next day that theyended by depriving themselves of them. 

The monotony of the desk became odious to them. Always the eraser andthe sandarac, the same inkstand, the same pens, and the same companions. Looking on the latter as stupid fellows, they talked to them less andless. This cost them some annoyances. They came after the regular hourevery day, and received reprimands. 

Formerly they had been almost happy, but their occupation humiliatedthem since they had begun to set a higher value on themselves, and theirdisgust increased while they were mutually glorifying and spoiling eachother. Pécuchet contracted Bouvard's bluntness, and Bouvard assumed alittle of Pécuchet's moroseness. 

"I have a mind to become a mountebank in the streets!" said one to theother. 

"As well to be a rag-picker!" exclaimed his friend. 

What an abominable situation! And no way out of it. Not even the hope ofit!

One afternoon (it was the 20th of January, 1839) Bouvard, while at hisdesk, received a letter left by the postman. 

He lifted up both hands; then his head slowly fell back, and he sank onthe floor in a swoon. 

The clerks rushed forward; they took off his cravat; they sent for aphysician. He re-opened his eyes; then, in answer to the questions theyput to him:

"Ah! the fact is----the fact is----A little air will relieve me. No; letme alone. Kindly give me leave to go out. "

And, in spite of his corpulence, he rushed, all breathless, to theAdmiralty office, and asked for Pécuchet. 

Pécuchet appeared. 

"My uncle is dead! I am his heir!"

"It isn't possible!"

Bouvard showed him the following lines:

 OFFICE OF MAÎTRE TARDIVEL, NOTARY. 

 _Savigny-en-Septaine, 14th January, 1839. _

 SIR, --I beg of you to call at my office in order to take notice there of the will of your natural father, M. François-Denys-Bartholomée Bouvard, ex-merchant in the town of Nantes, who died in this parish on the 10th of the present month. This will contains a very important disposition in your favour. 

 TARDIVEL, _Notary_. 

Pécuchet was obliged to sit down on a boundary-stone in the courtyardoutside the office. 

Then he returned the paper, saying slowly:

"Provided that this is not--some practical joke. "

"You think it is a farce!" replied Bouvard, in a stifled voice like therattling in the throat of a dying man. 

But the postmark, the name of the notary's office in printed characters, the notary's own signature, all proved the genuineness of the news; andthey regarded each other with a trembling at the corners of their mouthsand tears in their staring eyes. 

They wanted space to breathe freely. They went to the Arc de Triomphe, came back by the water's edge, and passed beyond Nôtre Dame. Bouvard wasvery flushed. He gave Pécuchet blows with his fist in the back, and forfive minutes talked utter nonsense. 

They chuckled in spite of themselves. This inheritance, surely, ought tomount up----?

"Ah! that would be too much of a good thing. Let's talk no more aboutit. "

They did talk again about it. There was nothing to prevent them fromimmediately demanding explanations. Bouvard wrote to the notary withthat view. 

The notary sent a copy of the will, which ended thus:

 _"Consequently, I give to François-Denys-Bartholemée Bouvard, my recognised natural son, the portion of my property disposable by law. "_

The old fellow had got this son in his youthful days, but he hadcarefully kept it dark, making him pass for a nephew; and the "nephew"had always called him "my uncle, " though he had his own idea on thematter. When he was about forty, M. Bouvard married; then he was left awidower. His two legitimate sons having gone against his wishes, remorsetook possession of him for the desertion of his other child during along period of years. He would have even sent for the lad but for theinfluence of his female cook. She left him, thanks to the manoeuvres ofthe family, and in his isolation, when death drew nigh, he wished torepair the wrongs he had done by bequeathing to the fruit of his earlylove all that he could of his fortune. It ran up to half a millionfrancs, thus giving the copying-clerk two hundred and fifty thousandfrancs. The eldest of the brothers, M. Étienne, had announced that hewould respect the will. 

Bouvard fell into a kind of stupefied condition. He kept repeating in alow tone, smiling with the peaceful smile of drunkards: "An income offifteen thousand livres!"--and Pécuchet, whose head, however, wasstronger, was not able to get over it. 

They were rudely shaken by a letter from Tardivel. The other son, M. Alexandre, declared his intention to have the entire matter decided bylaw, and even to question the legacy, if he could, requiring, first ofall, to have everything sealed, and to have an inventory taken and asequestrator appointed, etc. Bouvard got a bilious attack inconsequence. Scarcely had he recovered when he started for Savigny, fromwhich place he returned without having brought the matter nearer to asettlement, and he could only grumble about having gone to the expenseof a journey for nothing. Then followed sleepless nights, alternationsof rage and hope, of exaltation and despondency. Finally, after thelapse of six months, his lordship Alexandre was appeased, and Bouvardentered into possession of his inheritance. 

His first exclamation was: "We will retire into the country!" And thisphrase, which bound up his friend with his good fortune, Pécuchet hadfound quite natural. For the union of these two men was absolute andprofound. But, as he did not wish to live at Bouvard's expense, he wouldnot go before he got his retiring pension. Two years more; no matter! Heremained inflexible, and the thing was decided. 

In order to know where to settle down, they passed in review all theprovinces. The north was fertile, but too cold; the south delightful, sofar as the climate was concerned, but inconvenient because of themosquitoes; and the middle portion of the country, in truth, had nothingabout it to excite curiosity. Brittany would have suited them, were itnot for the bigoted tendency of its inhabitants. As for the regions ofthe east, on account of the Germanic _patois_ they could not dream ofit. But there were other places. For instance, what about Forez, Bugey, and Rumois? The maps said nothing about them. Besides, whether theirhouse happened to be in one place or in another, the important thing wasto have one. Already they saw themselves in their shirt-sleeves, at theedge of a plat-band, pruning rose trees, and digging, dressing, settlingthe ground, growing tulips in pots. They would awaken at the singing ofthe lark to follow the plough; they would go with baskets to gatherapples, would look on at butter-making, the thrashing of corn, sheep-shearing, bee-culture, and would feel delight in the lowing ofcows and in the scent of new-mown hay. No more writing! No more headsof departments! No more even quarters' rent to pay! For they had adwelling-house of their own! And they would eat the hens of their ownpoultry-yard, the vegetables of their own garden, and would dine withouttaking off their wooden shoes! "We'll do whatever we like! We'll let ourbeards grow!"

They would purchase horticultural implements, then a heap of things"that might perhaps be useful, " such as a tool-chest (there was alwaysneed of one in a house), next, scales, a land-surveyor's chain, abathing-tub in case they got ill, a thermometer, and even a barometer, "on the Gay-Lussac system, " for physical experiences, if they took afancy that way. It would not be a bad thing either (for a person cannotalways be working out of doors), to have some good literary works; andthey looked out for them, very embarrassed sometimes to know if such abook was really "a library book. "

Bouvard settled the question. "Oh! we shall not want a library. Besides, I have my own. "

They prepared their plans beforehand. Bouvard would bring his furniture, Pécuchet his big black table; they would turn the curtains to account;and, with a few kitchen utensils, this would be quite sufficient. Theyswore to keep silent about all this, but their faces spoke volumes. Sotheir colleagues thought them funny. Bouvard, who wrote spread over hisdesk, with his elbows out, in order the better to round his letters, gave vent to a kind of whistle while half-closing his heavy eyelids witha waggish air. Pécuchet, squatted on a big straw foot-stool, was alwayscarefully forming the pot-hooks of his large handwriting, but all thewhile swelling his nostrils and pressing his lips together, as if hewere afraid of letting his secret slip. 

After eighteen months of inquiries, they had discovered nothing. Theymade journeys in all the outskirts of Paris, both from Amiens to Evreux, and from Fontainebleau to Havre. They wanted a country place which wouldbe a thorough country place, without exactly insisting on a picturesquesite; but a limited horizon saddened them. 

They fled from the vicinity of habitations, and only redoubled theirsolitude. 

Sometimes they made up their minds; then, fearing they would repentlater, they changed their opinion, the place having appeared unhealthy, or exposed to the sea-breeze, or too close to a factory, or difficult ofaccess. 

Barberou came to their rescue. He knew what their dream was, and onefine day he called on them to let them know that he had been told aboutan estate at Chavignolles, between Caen and Falaise. This comprised afarm of thirty-eight hectares, [1] with a kind of château, and a gardenin a very productive state. 

They proceeded to Calvados, and were quite enraptured. For the farm, together with the house (one would not be sold without the other), onlya hundred and forty-three thousand francs were asked. Bouvard did notwant to give more than a hundred and twenty thousand. 

Pécuchet combated his obstinacy, begged of him to give way, and finallydeclared that he would make up the surplus himself. This was his entirefortune, coming from his mother's patrimony and his own savings. Neverhad he breathed a word, reserving this capital for a great occasion. 

The entire amount was paid up about the end of 1840, six months beforehis retirement. 

Bouvard was no longer a copying-clerk. At first he had continued hisfunctions through distrust of the future; but he had resigned once hewas certain of his inheritance. However, he willingly went back to MM. Descambos; and the night before his departure he stood drinks to all theclerks. 

Pécuchet, on the contrary, was morose towards his colleagues, and wentoff, on the last day, roughly clapping the door behind him. 

He had to look after the packing, to do a heap of commissions, then tomake purchases, and to take leave of Dumouchel. 

The professor proposed to him an epistolary interchange between them, ofwhich he would make use to keep Pécuchet well up in literature; and, after fresh felicitations, wished him good health. 

Barberou exhibited more sensibility in taking leave of Bouvard. Heexpressly gave up a domino-party, promised to go to see him "overthere, " ordered two aniseed cordials, and embraced him. 

Bouvard, when he got home, inhaled over the balcony a deep breath ofair, saying to himself, "At last!" The lights along the quays quiveredin the water, the rolling of omnibuses in the distance gradually ceased. He recalled happy days spent in this great city, supper-parties atrestaurants, evenings at the theatre, gossips with his portress, all hishabitual associations; and he experienced a sinking of the heart, asadness which he dared not acknowledge even to himself. 

Pécuchet was walking in his room up to two o'clock in the morning. Hewould come back there no more: so much the better! And yet, in order toleave behind something of himself, he printed his name on the plasterover the chimney-piece. 

The larger portion of the baggage was gone since the night before. Thegarden implements, the bedsteads, the mattresses, the tables, thechairs, a cooking apparatus, and three casks of Burgundy would go by theSeine, as far as Havre, and would be despatched thence to Caen, whereBouvard, who would wait for them, would have them brought on toChavignolles. 

But his father's portrait, the armchairs the liqueur-case, the oldbooks, the time-piece, all the precious objects were put into afurniture waggon, which would proceed through Nonancourt, Verneuil, andFalaise. Pécuchet was to accompany it. 

He installed himself beside the conductor, upon a seat, and, wrapped upin his oldest frock-coat, with a comforter, mittens, and his officefoot-warmer, on Sunday, the 20th of March, at daybreak, he set forthfrom the capital. 

The movement and the novelty of the journey occupied his attentionduring the first few hours. Then the horses slackened their pace, whichled to disputes between the conductor and the driver. They selectedexecrable inns, and, though they were accountable for everything, Pécuchet, through excess of prudence, slept in the same lodgings. 

Next day they started again, at dawn, and the road, always the same, stretched out, uphill, to the verge of the horizon. Yards of stones cameafter each other; the ditches were full of water; the country showeditself in wide tracts of green, monotonous and cold; clouds scuddedthrough the sky. From time to time there was a fall of rain. On thethird day squalls arose. The awning of the waggon, badly fastened on, went clapping with the wind, like the sails of a ship. Pécuchet loweredhis face under his cap, and every time he opened his snuff-box it wasnecessary for him, in order to protect his eyes, to turn roundcompletely. 

During the joltings he heard all his baggage swinging behind him, andshouted out a lot of directions. Seeing that they were useless, hechanged his tactics. He assumed an air of good-fellowship, and made adisplay of civilities; in the troublesome ascents he assisted the men inpushing on the wheels: he even went so far as to pay for the coffee andbrandy after the meals. From that time they went on more slowly; so muchso that, in the neighbourhood of Gauburge, the axletree broke, and thewaggon remained tilted over. Pécuchet immediately went to inspect theinside of it: the sets of porcelain lay in bits. He raised his arms, while he gnashed his teeth, and cursed these two idiots; and thefollowing day was lost owing to the waggon-driver getting tipsy: but hehad not the energy to complain, the cup of bitterness being full. 

Bouvard had quitted Paris only on the third day, as he had to dine oncemore with Barberou. He arrived in the coach-yard at the last moment;then he woke up before the cathedral of Rouen: he had mistaken the_diligence_. 

In the evening, all the places for Caen were booked. Not knowing what todo, he went to the Theatre of Arts, and he smiled at his neighbours, telling them he had retired from business, and had lately purchased anestate in the neighbourhood. When he started on Friday for Caen, hispackages were not there. He received them on Sunday, and despatched themin a cart, having given notice to the farmer who was working the landthat he would follow in the course of a few hours. 

At Falaise, on the ninth day of his journey, Pécuchet took a freshhorse, and even till sunset they kept steadily on. Beyond Bretteville, having left the high-road, he got off into a cross-road, fancying thatevery moment he could see the gable-ends of Chavignolles. However, theruts hid them from view; they vanished, and then the party foundthemselves in the midst of ploughed fields. The night was falling. Whatwas to become of them? At last Pécuchet left the waggon behind, and, splashing in the mire, advanced in front of it to reconnoitre. When hedrew near farm-houses, the dogs barked. He called out as loudly as everhe could, asking what was the right road. There was no answer. He wasafraid, and got back to the open ground. Suddenly two lanterns flashed. He perceived a cabriolet, and rushed forward to meet it. Bouvard wasinside. 

But where could the furniture waggon be? For an hour they called out toit through the darkness. At length it was found, and they arrived atChavignolles. 

A great fire of brushwood and pine-apples was blazing in thedining-room. Two covers were placed there. The furniture, which had comeby the cart, was piled up near the vestibule. Nothing was wanting. Theysat down to table. 

Onion soup had been prepared for them, also a chicken, bacon, andhard-boiled eggs. The old woman who cooked came from time to time toinquire about their tastes. They replied, "Oh! very good, very good!"and the big loaf, hard to cut, the cream, the nuts, all delighted them. There were holes in the flooring, and the damp was oozing through thewalls. However, they cast around them a glance of satisfaction, whileeating on the little table on which a candle was burning. Their faceswere reddened by the strong air. They stretched out their stomachs; theyleaned on the backs of their chairs, which made a cracking sound inconsequence, and they kept repeating: "Here we are in the place, then!What happiness! It seems to me that it is a dream!"

Although it was midnight, Pécuchet conceived the idea of taking a turnround the garden. Bouvard made no objection. They took up the candle, and, screening it with an old newspaper, walked along the paths. Theyfound pleasure in mentioning aloud the names of the vegetables. 

"Look here--carrots! Ah!--cabbages!"

Next, they inspected the espaliers. Pécuchet tried to discover the buds. Sometimes a spider would scamper suddenly over the wall, and the twoshadows of their bodies appeared magnified, repeating their gestures. The ends of the grass let the dew trickle out. The night was perfectlyblack, and everything remained motionless in a profound silence, aninfinite sweetness. In the distance a cock was crowing. 

Their two rooms had between them a little door, which was hidden by thepapering of the wall. By knocking a chest of drawers up against it, nails were shaken out; and they found the place gaping open. This was asurprise. 

When they had undressed and got into bed, they kept babbling for sometime. Then they went asleep--Bouvard on his back, with his mouth open, his head bare; Pécuchet on his right side, his knees in his stomach, hishead muffled in a cotton night-cap; and the pair snored under themoonlight which made its way in through the windows. 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II. 

EXPERIMENTS IN AGRICULTURE. 

How happy they felt when they awoke next morning! Bouvard smoked a pipe, and Pécuchet took a pinch of snuff, which they declared to be the bestthey had ever had in their whole lives. Then they went to the window toobserve the landscape. 

In front of them lay the fields, with a barn and the church-bell at theright and a screen of poplars at the left. 

Two principal walks, forming a cross, divided the garden into fourparts. The vegetables were contained in wide beds, where, at differentspots, arose dwarf cypresses and trees cut in distaff fashion. On oneside, an arbour just touched an artificial hillock; while, on the other, the espaliers were supported against a wall; and at the end, a railedopening gave a glimpse of the country outside. Beyond the wall there wasan orchard, and, next to a hedge of elm trees, a thicket; and behind therailed opening there was a narrow road. 

They were gazing on this spectacle together, when a man, with hairturning grey, and wearing a black overcoat, appeared walking along thepathway, striking with his cane all the bars of the railed fence. Theold servant informed them that this was M. Vaucorbeil, a doctor of somereputation in the district. She mentioned that the other people of notewere the Comte de Faverges, formerly a deputy, and an extensive owner ofland and cattle; M. Foureau, who sold wood, plaster, all sorts ofthings; M. Marescot, the notary; the Abbé Jeufroy; and the widow Bordin, who lived on her private income. The old woman added that, as forherself, they called her Germaine, on account of the late Germain, herhusband. She used to go out as a charwoman, but would be very glad toenter into the gentlemen's service. They accepted her offer, and thenwent out to take a look at their farm, which was situated over athousand yards away. 

When they entered the farmyard, Maître Gouy, the farmer, was shouting ata servant-boy, while his wife, on a stool, kept pressed between her legsa turkey-hen, which she was stuffing with balls of flour. 

The man had a low forehead, a thin nose, a downward look, and broadshoulders. The woman was very fair-haired, with her cheek-bones speckledwith bran, and that air of simplicity which may be seen in the faces ofpeasants on the windows of churches. 

In the kitchen, bundles of hemp hung from the ceiling. Three old gunsstood in a row over the upper part of the chimney-piece. A dresserloaded with flowered crockery occupied the space in the middle of thewall; and the window-panes with their green bottle-glass threw over thetin and copper utensils a sickly lustre. 

The two Parisians wished to inspect the property, which they had seenonly once--and that a mere passing glance. Maître Gouy and his wifeescorted them, and then began a litany of complaints. 

All the appointments, from the carthouse to the boilery, stood in needof repair. It would be necessary to erect an additional store for thecheese, to put fresh iron on the railings, to raise the boundaries, todeepen the ponds, and to plant anew a considerable number of apple treesin the three enclosures. 

Then they went to look at the lands under cultivation. Maître Gouy ranthem down, saying that they ate up too much manure; cartage wasexpensive; it was impossible to get rid of stones; and the bad grasspoisoned the meadows. This depreciation of his land lessened thepleasure experienced by Bouvard in walking over it. 

They came back by the hollow path under an avenue of beech trees. Onthis side the house revealed its front and its courtyard. It was paintedwhite, with a coating of yellow. The carthouse and the storehouse, thebakehouse and the woodshed, made, by means of a return, two lower wings. The kitchen communicated with a little hall. Next came the vestibule, asecond hall larger than the other, and the drawing-room. The four roomson the first floor opened on the corridor facing the courtyard. Pécuchetselected one of them for his collections. The last was to be thelibrary; and, on opening some of the presses, they found a few ancientvolumes, but they had no fancy for reading the titles of them. The mosturgent matter was the garden. 

Bouvard, while passing close to the row of elm trees, discovered undertheir branches a plaster figure of a woman. With two fingers she heldwide her petticoat, with her knees bent and her head over her shoulder, as if she were afraid of being surprised. 

"I beg your pardon! Don't inconvenience yourself!"--and this pleasantryamused them so much that they kept repeating it twenty times a day forthree months. 

Meanwhile, the people of Chavignolles were desirous to make theiracquaintance. Persons came to look at them through the railed fence. They stopped up the openings with boards. This thwarted the inhabitants. To protect himself from the sun Bouvard wore on his head a handkerchief, fastened so as to look like a turban. Pécuchet wore his cap, and he hada big apron with a pocket in front, in which a pair of pruning-shears, his silk handkerchief, and his snuff-box jostled against one another. Bare-armed, side by side, they dug, weeded, and pruned, imposing taskson each other, and eating their meals as quickly as ever they could, taking care, however, to drink their coffee on the hillock, in order toenjoy the view. 

If they happened to come across a snail, they pounced on it and crushedit, making grimaces with the corners of their mouths, as if they werecracking nuts. They never went out without their grafting implements, and they used to cut the worms in two with such force that the iron ofthe implement would sink three inches deep. To get rid of caterpillars, they struck the trees furiously with switches. 

Bouvard planted a peony in the middle of the grass plot, and tomatoes sothat they would hang down like chandeliers under the arch of the arbour. 

Pécuchet had a large pit dug in front of the kitchen, and divided itinto three parts, where he could manufacture composts which would growa heap of things, whose detritus would again bring other crops, providing in this way other manures to a limitless extent; and he fellinto reveries on the edge of the pit, seeing in the future mountains offruits, floods of flowers, and avalanches of vegetables. But thehorse-dung, so necessary for the beds, was not to be had, inasmuch asthe farmers did not sell it, and the innkeepers refused to supply it. Atlast, after many searches, in spite of the entreaties of Bouvard, andflinging aside all shamefacedness, he made up his mind to go for thedung himself. 

It was in the midst of this occupation that Madame Bordin accosted himone day on the high-road. When she had complimented him, she inquiredabout his friend. This woman's black eyes, very small and verybrilliant, her high complexion, and her assurance (she even had a littlemoustache) intimidated Pécuchet. He replied curtly, and turned his backon her--an impoliteness of which Bouvard disapproved. 

Then the bad weather came on, with frost and snow. They installedthemselves in the kitchen, and went in for trellis-work, or else keptgoing from one room to another, chatted by the chimney corner, orwatched the rain coming down. 

Since the middle of Lent they had awaited the approach of spring, andeach morning repeated: "Everything is starting out!" But the season waslate, and they consoled their impatience by saying: "Everything is goingto start out!"

At length they were able to gather the green peas. The asparagus gave agood crop; and the vine was promising. 

Since they were able to work together at gardening, they must needssucceed at agriculture; and they were seized with an ambition tocultivate the farm. With common sense and study of the subject, theywould get through it beyond a doubt. 

But they should first see how others carried on operations, and so theydrew up a letter in which they begged of M. De Faverges to do them thehonour of allowing them to visit the lands which he cultivated. 

The count made an appointment immediately to meet them. 

After an hour's walking, they reached the side of a hill overlooking thevalley of the Orne. The river wound its way to the bottom of the valley. Blocks of red sandstone stood here and there, and in the distance largermasses of stone formed, as it were, a cliff overhanging fields of ripecorn. On the opposite hill the verdure was so abundant that it hid thehouse from view. Trees divided it into unequal squares, outliningthemselves amid the grass by more sombre lines. 

Suddenly the entire estate came into view. The tiled roofs showed wherethe farm stood. To the right rose the château with its white façade, andbeyond it was a wood. A lawn descended to the river, into which a row ofplane trees cast their shadows. 

The two friends entered a field of lucern, which people were spreading. Women wearing straw hats, with cotton handkerchiefs round their heads, and paper shades, were lifting with rakes the hay which lay on theground, while at the end of the plain, near the stacks, bundles werebeing rapidly flung into a long cart, yoked to three horses. 

The count advanced, followed by his manager. He was dressed in dimity;and his stiff figure and mutton-chop whiskers gave him at the same timethe air of a magistrate and a dandy. Even when he was speaking, hisfeatures did not appear to move. 

As soon as they had exchanged some opening courtesies, he explained hissystem with regard to fodder: the swathes should be turned withoutscattering them; the ricks should be conical, and the bundles madeimmediately on the spot, and then piled together by tens. As for theEnglish rake, the meadow was too uneven for such an implement. 

A little girl, with her stockingless feet in old shoes, and showing herskin through the rents in her dress, was supplying the women with cider, which she poured out of a jug supported against her hip. The count askedwhere this child came from, but nobody could tell. The women who weremaking the hay had picked her up to wait on them during the harvesting. He shrugged his shoulders, and just as he was moving away from the spot, he gave vent to some complaints as to the immorality of our countrydistricts. 

Bouvard eulogised his lucern field. 

It was fairly good, in spite of the ravages of the _cuscute_. [2]

The future agriculturists opened their eyes wide at the word "cuscute. "

On account of the number of his cattle, he resorted to artificialmeadowing; besides, it went well before the other crops--a thing thatdid not always happen in the case of fodder. 

"This at least appears to me incontestable. "

"Oh! incontestable, " replied Bouvard and Pécuchet in one breath. Theywere on the borders of a field which had been carefully thinned. Ahorse, which was being led by hand, was dragging along a large box, mounted on three wheels. Seven ploughshares below were opening inparallel lines small furrows, in which the grain fell through pipesdescending to the ground. 

"Here, " said the count, "I sow turnips. The turnip is the basis of myquadrennial system of cultivation. "

And he was proceeding to deliver a lecture on the drill-plough when aservant came to look for him, and told him that he was wanted at thechâteau. 

His manager took his place--a man with a forbidding countenance andobsequious manners. 

He conducted "these gentlemen" to another field, where fourteenharvesters, with bare breasts and legs apart, were cutting down rye. Thesteels whistled in the chaff, which came pouring straight down. Each ofthem described in front of him a large semicircle, and, all in a line, they advanced at the same time. The two Parisians admired their arms, and felt smitten with an almost religious veneration for the opulence ofthe soil. Then they proceeded to inspect some of the ploughed lands. Thetwilight was falling, and the crows swooped down into the ridges. 

As they proceeded they met a flock of sheep pasturing here and there, and they could hear their continual browsing. The shepherd, seated onthe stump of a tree, was knitting a woollen stocking, with his dogbeside him. 

The manager assisted Bouvard and Pécuchet to jump over a wooden fence, and they passed close to two orchards, where cows were ruminating underthe apple trees. 

All the farm-buildings were contiguous and occupied the three sides ofthe yard. Work was carried on there mechanically by means of a turbinemoved by a stream which had been turned aside for the purpose. Leathernbands stretched from one roof to the other, and in the midst of dung aniron pump performed its operations. 

The manager drew their attention to little openings in the sheepfoldsnearly on a level with the floor, and ingenious doors in the pigstieswhich could shut of their own accord. 

The barn was vaulted like a cathedral, with brick arches resting onstone walls. 

In order to amuse the gentlemen, a servant-girl threw a handful of oatsbefore the hens. The shaft of the press appeared to them enormously big. Next they went up to the pigeon-house. The dairy especially astonishedthem. By turning cocks in the corners, you could get enough water toflood the flagstones, and, as you entered, a sense of grateful coolnesscame upon you as a surprise. Brown jars, ranged close to the barredopening in the wall, were full to the brim of milk, while the cream wascontained in earthen pans of less depth. Then came rolls of butter, likefragments of a column of copper, and froth overflowed from the tin pailswhich had just been placed on the ground. 

But the gem of the farm was the ox-stall. It was divided into twosections by wooden bars standing upright their full length, one portionbeing reserved for the cattle, and the other for persons who attendedon them. You could scarcely see there, as all the loopholes were closedup. The oxen were eating, with little chains attached to them, and theirbodies exhaled a heat which was kept down by the low ceiling. Butsomeone let in the light, and suddenly a thin stream of water flowedinto the little channel which was beside the racks. Lowings were heard, and the horns of the cattle made a rattling noise like sticks. All theoxen thrust their muzzles between the bars, and proceeded to drinkslowly. 

The big teams made their way into the farmyard, and the foals began toneigh. On the ground floor two or three lanterns flashed and thendisappeared. The workpeople were passing, dragging their wooden shoesover the pebbles, and the bell was ringing for supper. 

The two visitors took their departure. 

All they had seen delighted them, and their resolution was taken. Afterthat evening, they took out of their library the four volumes of _LaMaison Rustique_, went through Gasperin's course of lectures, andsubscribed to an agricultural journal. 

In order to be able to attend the fairs more conveniently, theypurchased a car, which Bouvard used to drive. 

Dressed in blue blouses, with large-brimmed hats, gaiters up to theirknees, and horse-dealers' cudgels in their hands, they prowled aroundcattle, asked questions of labourers, and did not fail to attend at allthe agricultural gatherings. 

Soon they wearied Maître Gouy with their advice, and especially by theirdepreciation of his system of fallowing. But the farmer stuck to hisroutine. He asked to be allowed a quarter, putting forward as a reasonthe heavy falls of hail. As for the farm-dues, he never furnished any ofthem. His wife raised an outcry at even the most legitimate claims. Atlength Bouvard declared his intention not to renew the lease. 

Thenceforth Maître Gouy economised the manures, allowed weeds to growup, ruined the soil; and he took himself off with a fierce air, whichshowed that he was meditating some scheme of revenge. 

Bouvard had calculated that 20, 000 francs, that is to say, more thanfour times the rent of the farm, would be enough to start with. Hisnotary sent the amount from Paris. 

The property which they had undertaken to cultivate comprised fifteenhectares[3] of grounds and meadows, twenty-three of arable land, andfive of waste land, situated on a hillock covered with stones, and knownby the name of La Butte. [4]

They procured all the indispensable requirements for the purpose: fourhorses, a dozen cows, six hogs, one hundred and sixty sheep, and for thehousehold two carters, two women, a shepherd, and in addition a big dog. 

In order to get cash at once, they sold their fodder. The price was paidto them directly, and the gold napoleons counted over a chest of oatsappeared to them more glittering than any others, more rare andvaluable. 

In the month of November they brewed cider. It was Bouvard that whippedthe horse, while Pécuchet on the trough shovelled off the strainedapples. 

They panted while pressing the screw, drew the juice off into the vat, looked after the bung-holes, with heavy wooden shoes on their feet; andin all this they found a huge diversion. 

Starting with the principle that you cannot have too much corn, they gotrid of about half of their artificial meadows; and, as they had not richpasturing, they made use of oil-cakes, which they put into the groundwithout pounding, with the result that the crop was a wretched one. 

The following year they sowed the ground very thickly. Storms broke out, and the ears of corn were scattered. 

Nevertheless, they set their hearts on the cheese, and undertook toclear away the stones from La Butte. A hamper carried away the stones. The whole year, from morn to eve, in sunshine or in rain, theeverlasting hamper was seen, with the same man and the same horse, toiling up the hill, coming down, and going up again. Sometimes Bouvardwalked in the rear, making a halt half-way up the hill to dry the sweatoff his forehead. 

As they had confidence in nobody, they treated the animals themselves, giving them purgatives and clysters. 

Serious irregularities occurred in the household. The girl in thepoultry-yard became _enceinte_. Then they took married servants; but theplace soon swarmed with children, cousins, male and female, uncles, andsisters-in-law. A horde of people lived at their expense; and theyresolved to sleep in the farm-house successively. 

But when evening came they felt depressed, for the filthiness of theroom was offensive to them; and besides, Germaine, who brought in themeals, grumbled at every journey. They were preyed upon in all sorts ofways. The threshers in the barn stuffed corn into the pitchers out ofwhich they drank. Pécuchet caught one of them in the act, and exclaimed, while pushing him out by the shoulders:

"Wretch! You are a disgrace to the village that gave you birth!"

His presence inspired no respect. Moreover, he was plagued with thegarden. All his time would not have sufficed to keep it in order. Bouvard was occupied with the farm. They took counsel and decided onthis arrangement. 

The first point was to have good hotbeds. Pécuchet got one made ofbrick. He painted the frames himself; and, being afraid of too muchsunlight, he smeared over all the bell-glasses with chalk. He took careto cut off the tops of the leaves for slips. Next he devoted attentionto the layers. He attempted many sorts of grafting--flute-graft, crown-graft, shield-graft, herbaceous grafting, and whip-grafting. Withwhat care he adjusted the two libers! how he tightened the ligatures!and what a heap of ointment it took to cover them again!

Twice a day he took his watering-pot and swung it over the plants as ifhe would have shed incense over them. In proportion as they became greenunder the water, which fell in a thin shower, it seemed to him as if hewere quenching his own thirst and reviving along with them. Then, yielding to a feeling of intoxication, he snatched off the rose of thewatering-pot, and poured out the liquid copiously from the open neck. 

At the end of the elm hedge, near the female figure in plaster, stood akind of log hut. Pécuchet locked up his implements there, and spentdelightful hours there picking the berries, writing labels, and puttinghis little pots in order. He sat down to rest himself on a box at thedoor of the hut, and then planned fresh improvements. 

He had put two clumps of geraniums at the end of the front steps. Between the cypresses and the distaff-shaped trees he had plantedsunflowers; and as the plots were covered with buttercups, and all thewalks with fresh sand, the garden was quite dazzling in its abundance ofyellow hues. 

But the bed swarmed with larvæ. In spite of the dead leaves placed thereto heat the plants, under the painted frames and the whitenedbell-glasses, only a stunted crop made its appearance. He failed withthe broccoli, the mad-apples, the turnips, and the watercress, which hehad tried to raise in a tub. After the thaw all the artichokes wereruined. The cabbages gave him some consolation. One of them especiallyexcited his hopes. It expanded and shut up quickly, but ended bybecoming prodigious and absolutely uneatable. No matter--Pécuchet wascontent with being the possessor of a monstrosity!

Then he tried his hand at what he regarded as the _summum_ of art--thegrowing of melons. 

He sowed many varieties of seed in plates filled with vegetable mould, which he deposited in the soil of the bed. Then he raised another bed, and when it had put forth its virgin buddings he transplanted the bestof them, putting bell-glasses over them. He made all the cuttings inaccordance with the precepts of _The Good Gardener_. He treated theflowers tenderly; he let the fruits grow in a tangle, and then selectedone on either arm, removed the others, and, as soon as they were aslarge as nuts, he slipped a little board around their rind to preventthem from rotting by contact with dung. He heated them, gave them air, swept off the mist from the bell-glasses with his pocket-handkerchief, and, if he saw lowering clouds, he quickly brought out straw mattings toprotect them. 

He did not sleep at night on account of them. Many times he even got upout of bed, and, putting on his boots without stockings, shivering inhis shirt, he traversed the entire garden to throw his own counterpaneover his hotbed frames. 

The melons ripened. Bouvard grinned when he saw the first of them. Thesecond was no better; neither was the third. For each of them Pécuchetfound a fresh excuse, down to the very last, which he threw out of thewindow, declaring that he could not understand it at all. 

The fact was, he had planted some things beside others of a differentspecies; and so the sweet melons got mixed up with the kitchen-gardenmelons, the big Portugal with the Grand Mogul variety; and this anarchywas completed by the proximity of the tomatoes--the result beingabominable hybrids that had the taste of pumpkins. 

Then Pécuchet devoted his attention to the flowers. He wrote toDumouchel to get shrubs with seeds for him, purchased a stock of heathsoil, and set to work resolutely. 

But he planted passion-flowers in the shade and pansies in the sun, covered the hyacinths with dung, watered the lilies near their blossoms, tried to stimulate the fuchsias with glue, and actually roasted apomegranate by exposing it to the heat of the kitchen fire. 

When the weather got cold, he screened the eglantines under domes ofstrong paper which had been lubricated with a candle. They looked likesugarloaves held up by sticks. 

The dahlias had enormous props; and between these straight lines couldbe seen the winding branches of a Sophora Japonica, which remainedmotionless, without either perishing or growing. 

However, since even the rarest trees flourish in the gardens of thecapital, they must needs grow successfully at Chavignolles; and Pécuchetprovided himself with the Indian lilac, the Chinese rose, and theeucalyptus, then in the beginning of its fame. But all his experimentsfailed; and at each successive failure he was vastly astonished. 

Bouvard, like him, met with obstacles. They held many consultations, opened a book, then passed on to another, and did not know what toresolve upon when there was so much divergence of opinion. 

Thus, Puvis recommends marl, while the Roret Manual is opposed to it. Asfor plaster, in spite of the example of Franklin, Riefel and M. Rigauddid not appear to be in raptures about it. 

According to Bouvard, fallow lands were a Gothic prejudice. However, Leclerc has noted cases in which they are almost indispensable. Gasparinmentions a native of Lyons who cultivated cereals in the same field forhalf a century: this upsets the theory as to the variation of crops. Tull extols tillage to the prejudice of rich pasture; and there is MajorBeetson, who by means of tillage would abolish pasture altogether. 

In order to understand the indications of the weather, they studied theclouds according to the classification of Luke Howard. They contemplatedthose which spread out like manes, those which resemble islands, andthose which might be taken for mountains of snow--trying to distinguishthe nimbus from the cirrus and the stratus from the cumulus. The shapeshad altered even before they had discovered the names. 

The barometer deceived them; the thermometer taught them nothing; andthey had recourse to the device invented in the time of Louis XIV. By apriest from Touraine. A leech in a glass bottle was to rise up in theevent of rain, to stick to the bottom in settled weather, and to moveabout if a storm were threatening. But nearly always the atmospherecontradicted the leech. Three others were put in along with it. Theentire four behaved differently. 

After many reflections, Bouvard realised that he had made a mistake. Hisproperty required cultivation on a large scale, the concentrated system, and he risked all the disposable capital that he had left--thirtythousand francs. 

Stimulated by Pécuchet, he began to rave about pasture. In the pit forcomposts were heaped up branches of trees, blood, guts, feathers--everything that he could find. He used Belgian cordial, Swisswash, lye, red herrings, wrack, rags; sent for guano, tried tomanufacture it himself; and, pushing his principles to the farthestpoint, he would not suffer even urine or other refuse to be lost. Intohis farmyard were carried carcasses of animals, with which he manuredhis lands. Their cut-up carrion strewed the fields. Bouvard smiled inthe midst of this stench. A pump fixed to a dung-cart spattered theliquid manure over the crops. To those who assumed an air of disgust, heused to say, "But 'tis gold! 'tis gold!" And he was sorry that he hadnot still more manures. Happy the land where natural grottoes are foundfull of the excrements of birds!

The colza was thin; the oats only middling; and the corn sold very badlyon account of its smell. A curious circumstance was that La Butte, withthe stones cleared away from it at last, yielded less than before. 

He deemed it advisable to renew his material. He bought a Guillaumescarifier, a Valcourt weeder, an English drill-machine, and the greatswing-plough of Mathieu de Dombasle, but the ploughboy disparaged it. 

"Do you learn to use it!"

"Well, do you show me!"

He made an attempt to show, but blundered, and the peasants sneered. Hecould never make them obey the command of the bell. He was incessantlybawling after them, rushing from one place to another, taking downobservations in a note-book, making appointments and forgetting allabout them--and his head was boiling over with industrial speculations. 

He got the notion into his head of cultivating the poppy for the purposeof getting opium from it, and above all the milk-vetch, which heintended to sell under the name of "family coffee. "

Finally, in order to fatten his oxen the more quickly, he blooded themfor an entire fortnight. 

He killed none of his pigs, and gorged them with salted oats. The pigstysoon became too narrow. The animals obstructed the farmyard, broke downthe fences, and went gnawing at everything. 

In the hot weather twenty-five sheep began to get spoiled, and shortlyafterwards died. The same week three bulls perished owing to Bouvard'sblood-lettings. 

In order to destroy the maggots, he thought of shutting up the fowls ina hencoop on rollers, which two men had to push along behind theplough--a thing which had only the effect of breaking the claws of thefowls. 

He manufactured beer with germander-leaves, and gave it to theharvesters as cider. The children cried, the women moaned, and the menraged. They all threatened to go, and Bouvard gave way to them. 

However, to convince them of the harmlessness of his beverage, heswallowed several bottles of it in their presence; then he got cramps, but concealed his pains under a playful exterior. He even got themixture sent to his own residence. He drank some of it with Pécuchet inthe evening, and both of them tried to persuade themselves that it wasgood. Besides, it was necessary not to let it go to waste. Bouvard'scolic having got worse, Germaine went for the doctor. 

He was a grave-looking man, with a round forehead, and he began byfrightening his patient. He thought the gentleman's attack of cholerinemust be connected with the beer which people were talking about in thecountry. He desired to know what it was composed of, and found faultwith it in scientific terms with shruggings of the shoulders. Pécuchet, who had supplied the recipe for it, was mortified. 

In spite of pernicious limings, stinted redressings, and unseasonableweedings, Bouvard had in front of him, in the following year, a splendidcrop of wheat. He thought of drying it by fermentation, in the Dutchfashion, on the Clap-Meyer system: that is to say, he got it thrown downall of a heap and piled up in stacks, which would be overturned as soonas the damp escaped from them, and then exposed to the open air--afterwhich Bouvard went off without the least uneasiness. 

Next day, while they were at dinner, they heard under the beech treesthe beating of a drum. Germaine ran out to know what was the matter, butthe man was by this time some distance away. Almost at the same momentthe church-bell rang violently. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet felt alarmed, and, impatient to learn what hadhappened, they rushed bareheaded along the Chavignolles road. 

An old woman passed them. She knew nothing about it. They stopped alittle boy, who replied:

"I believe it's a fire!"

And the drum continued beating and the bell ringing more loudly thanbefore. At length they reached the nearest houses in the village. Thegrocer, some yards away, exclaimed:

"The fire is at your place!"

Pécuchet stepped out in double-quick time; and he said to Bouvard, whotrotted by his side with equal speed:

"One, two! one, two!"--counting his steps regularly, like the chasseursof Vincennes. 

The road which they took was a continuously uphill one; the slopingground hid the horizon from their view. They reached a height close toLa Butte, and at a single glance the disaster was revealed to them. 

All the stacks, here and there, were flaming like volcanoes in the midstof the plain, stripped bare in the evening stillness. Around the biggestof them there were about three hundred persons, perhaps; and under thecommand of M. Foureau, the mayor, in a tricoloured scarf, youngsters, with poles and crooks, were dragging down the straw from the top inorder to save the rest of it. 

Bouvard, in his eagerness, was near knocking down Madame Bordin, whohappened to be there. Then, seeing one of his servant-boys, he loadedhim with insults for not having given him warning. The servant-boy, onthe contrary, through excess of zeal, had at first rushed to the house, then to the church, next to where Monsieur himself was staying, and hadreturned by the other road. 

Bouvard lost his head. His entire household gathered round him, alltalking together, and he forbade them to knock down the stacks, beggedof them to give him some help, called for water, and asked where werethe firemen. 

"We've got to get them first!" exclaimed the mayor. 

"That's your fault!" replied Bouvard. 

He flew into a passion, and made use of improper language, and everyonewondered at the patience of M. Foureau, who, all the same, was a surlyindividual, as might be seen from his big lips and bulldog jaw. 

The heat of the stacks became so great that nobody could come close tothem any longer. Under the devouring flames the straw writhed with acrackling sound, and the grains of corn lashed one's face as if theywere buckshot. Then the stack fell in a huge burning pile to the ground, and a shower of sparks flew out of it, while fiery waves floated abovethe red mass, which presented in its alternations of colour parts rosyas vermilion and others like clotted blood. The night had come, the windwas swelling; from time to time, a flake of fire passed across the blacksky. 

Bouvard viewed the conflagration with tears in his eyes, which wereveiled by his moist lids, and his whole face was swollen with grief. Madame Bordin, while playing with the fringes of her green shawl, calledhim "Poor Monsieur!" and tried to console him. Since nothing could bedone, he ought to do himself justice. 

Pécuchet did not weep. Very pale, or rather livid, with open mouth, andhair stuck together with cold sweat, he stood apart, brooding. But thecuré who had suddenly arrived on the scene, murmured, in a wheedlingtone:

"Ah! really, what a misfortune! It is very annoying. Be sure that Ienter into your feelings. "

The others did not affect any regret. They chatted and smiled, withhands spread out before the flame. An old man picked out burning strawsto light his pipe with; and one blackguard cried out that it was veryfunny. 

"Yes, 'tis nice fun!" retorted Bouvard, who had just overheard him. 

The fire abated, the burning piles subsided, and an hour later onlyashes remained, making round, black marks on the plain. Then allwithdrew. 

Madame Bordin and the Abbé Jeufroy led MM. Bouvard and Pécuchet back totheir abode. 

On the way the widow addressed very polite reproaches to her neighbouron his unsociableness, and the ecclesiastic expressed his great surpriseat not having up to the present known such a distinguished parishionerof his. 

When they were alone together, they inquired into the cause of theconflagration, and, in place of recognising, like the rest of the world, that the moist straw had taken fire of its own accord, they suspectedthat it was a case of revenge. It proceeded, no doubt, from Maître Gouy, or perhaps from the mole-catcher. Six months before Bouvard had refusedto accept his services, and even maintained, before a circle oflisteners, that his trade was a baneful one, and that the governmentought to prohibit it. Since that time the man prowled about thelocality. He wore his beard full-grown, and appeared to themfrightful-looking, especially in the evening, when he presented himselfoutside the farmyard, shaking his long pole garnished with hangingmoles. 

The damage done was considerable, and in order to know their exactposition, Pécuchet for eight days worked at Bouvard's books, which hepronounced to be "a veritable labyrinth. " After he had compared theday-book, the correspondence, and the ledger covered with pencil-notesand discharges, he realised the truth: no goods to sell, no funds to getin, and in the cash-box zero. The capital showed a deficit ofthirty-three thousand francs. 

Bouvard would not believe it, and more than twenty times they went overthe accounts. They always arrived at the same conclusion. Two yearsmore of such farming, and their fortune would be spent on it! The onlyremedy was to sell out. 

To do that, it was necessary to consult a notary. The step was adisagreeable one: Pécuchet took it on himself. 

In M. Marescot's opinion, it was better not to put up any posters. Hewould speak about the farm to respectable clients, and would let themmake proposals. 

"Very well, " said Bouvard, "we have time before us. " He intended to geta tenant; then they would see. "We shall not be more unlucky thanbefore; only now we are forced to practise economy!"

Pécuchet was disgusted with gardening, and a few days later he remarked:

"We ought to give ourselves up exclusively to tree culture--not forpleasure, but as a speculation. A pear which is the product of threesoils is sometimes sold in the capital for five or six francs. Gardenersmake out of apricots twenty-five thousand livres in the year! At St. Petersburg, during the winter, grapes are sold at a napoleon per grape. It is a beautiful industry, you must admit! And what does it cost?Attention, manuring, and a fresh touch of the pruning-knife. "

It excited Bouvard's imagination so much that they sought immediately intheir books for a nomenclature for purchasable plants, and, havingselected names which appeared to them wonderful, they applied to anurseryman from Falaise, who busied himself in supplying them with threehundred stalks for which he had not found a sale. They got a lock-smithfor the props, an iron-worker for the fasteners, and a carpenter for therests. The forms of the trees were designed beforehand. Pieces of lathon the wall represented candelabra. Two posts at the ends of theplat-bands supported steel threads in a horizontal position; and in theorchard, hoops indicated the structure of vases, cone-shaped switchesthat of pyramids, so well that, in arriving in the midst of them, youimagined you saw pieces of some unknown machinery or the framework of apyrotechnic apparatus. 

The holes having been dug, they cut the ends of all the roots, good orbad, and buried them in a compost. Six months later the plants weredead. Fresh orders to the nurseryman, and fresh plantings in stilldeeper holes. But the rain softening the soil, the grafts buriedthemselves in the ground of their own accord, and the trees sproutedout. 

When spring had come, Pécuchet set about the pruning of pear trees. Hedid not cut down the shoots, spared the superfluous side branches, and, persisting in trying to lay the "duchesses" out in a square when theyought to go in a string on one side, he broke them or tore them downinvariably. As for the peach trees, he got mixed up with over-motherbranches, under-mother branches, and second-under-mother branches. Theempty and the full always presented themselves when they were notwanted, and it was impossible to obtain on an espalier a perfectrectangle, with six branches to the right and six to the left, notincluding the two principal ones, the whole forming a fine bit ofherringbone work. 

Bouvard tried to manage the apricot trees, but they rebelled. He loweredtheir stems nearly to a level with the ground; none of them shot upagain. The cherry trees, in which he had made notches, produced gum. 

At first, they cut very long, which destroyed the principal buds, andthen very short, which led to excessive branching; and they oftenhesitated, not knowing how to distinguish between buds of trees and budsof flowers. They were delighted to have flowers, but when theyrecognised their mistake, they tore off three fourths of them tostrengthen the remainder. 

Incessantly they kept talking about "sap" and "cambium, " "paling up, ""breaking down, " and "blinding of an eye. " In the middle of theirdining-room they had in a frame the list of their young growths, as ifthey were pupils, with a number which was repeated in the garden on alittle piece of wood, at the foot of the tree. Out of bed at dawn, theykept working till nightfall with their twigs carried in their belts. Inthe cold mornings of spring, Bouvard wore his knitted vest under hisblouse, and Pécuchet his old frock-coat under his packcloth wrapper; andthe people passing by the open fence heard them coughing in the dampatmosphere. 

Sometimes Pécuchet drew forth his manual from his pocket, and he studieda paragraph of it standing up with his grafting-tool near him in theattitude of the gardener who decorated the frontispiece of the book. This resemblance flattered him exceedingly, and made him entertain moreesteem for the author. 

Bouvard was continually perched on a high ladder before the pyramids. One day he was seized with dizziness, and, not daring to come downfarther, he called on Pécuchet to come to his aid. 

At length pears made their appearance, and there were plums in theorchard. Then they made use of all the devices which had beenrecommended to them against the birds. But the bits of glass madedazzling reflections, the clapper of the wind-mill woke them during thenight, and the sparrows perched on the lay figure. They made a second, and even a third, varying the dress, but without any useful result. 

However, they could hope for some fruit. Pécuchet had just given anintimation of the fact to Bouvard, when suddenly the thunder resoundedand the rain fell--a heavy and violent downpour. The wind at intervalsshook the entire surface of the espalier. The props gave way one afterthe other, and the unfortunate distaff-shaped trees, while swaying underthe storm, dashed their pears against one another. 

Pécuchet, surprised by the shower, had taken refuge in the hut. Bouvardstuck to the kitchen. They saw splinters of wood, branches, and slateswhirling in front of them; and the sailors' wives who, on the sea-shoreten leagues away, were gazing out at the sea, had not eyes more wistfulor hearts more anxious. Then, suddenly, the supports and wooden bars ofespaliers facing one another, together with the rail-work, toppled downinto the garden beds. 

What a picture when they went to inspect the scene! The cherries andplums covered the grass, amid the dissolving hailstones. The PasseColmars were destroyed, as well as the Besi des Vétérans and theTriomphes de Jordoigne. There was barely left amongst the apples even afew Bon Papas; and a dozen Tetons de Venus, the entire crop of peaches, rolled into the pools of water by the side of the box trees, which hadbeen torn up by the roots. 

After dinner, at which they ate very little, Pécuchet said softly:

"We should do well to see after the farm, lest anything has happened toit. "

"Bah! only to find fresh causes of sadness. "

"Perhaps so; for we are not exactly lucky. "

And they made complaints against Providence and against nature. 

Bouvard, with his elbows on the table, spoke in little whispers; and asall their troubles began to subside, their former agricultural projectscame back to their recollection, especially the starch manufacture andthe invention of a new sort of cheese. 

Pécuchet drew a loud breath; and while he crammed several pinches ofsnuff into his nostrils, he reflected that, if fate had so willed it, hemight now be a member of an agricultural society, might be deliveringbrilliant lectures, and might be referred to as an authority in thenewspapers. 

Bouvard cast a gloomy look around him. 

"Faith! I'm anxious to get rid of all this, in order that we may settledown somewhere else!"

"Just as you like, " said Pécuchet; and the next moment: "The authorsrecommend us to suppress every direct passage. In this way the sap iscounteracted, and the tree necessarily suffers thereby. In order to bein good health, it would be necessary for it to have no fruit! However, those which we prune and which we never manure produce them not so big, it is true, but more luscious. I require them to give me a reason forthis! And not only each kind demands its particular attentions, butstill more each individual tree, according to climate, temperature, anda heap of things! Where, then, is the rule? and what hope have we ofany success or profit?"

Bouvard replied to him, "You will see in Gasparin that the profit cannotexceed the tenth of the capital. Therefore, we should be doing better byinvesting this capital in a banking-house. At the end of fifteen years, by the accumulation of interest, we'd have it doubled, without havingour constitutions ground down. "

Pécuchet hung down his head. 

"Arboriculture may be a humbug!"

"Like agriculture!" replied Bouvard. 

Then they blamed themselves for having been too ambitious, and theyresolved to husband thenceforth their labour and their money. Anoccasional pruning would suffice for the orchard. The counter-espalierswere forbidden, and dead or fallen trees should not be replaced; but hewas going to do a nasty job--nothing less than to destroy all the otherswhich remained standing. How was he to set about the work?

Pécuchet made several diagrams, while using his mathematical case. Bouvard gave him advice. They arrived at no satisfactory result. Fortunately, they discovered amongst their collection of books Boitard'swork entitled _L'Architecte des Jardins_. 

The author divides them into a great number of styles. First there isthe melancholy and romantic style, which is distinguished byimmortelles, ruins, tombs, and "a votive offering to the Virgin, indicating the place where a lord has fallen under the blade of anassassin. " The terrible style is composed of overhanging rocks, shattered trees, burning huts; the exotic style, by planting Peruviantorch-thistles, "in order to arouse memories in a colonist or atraveller. " The grave style should, like Ermenonville, offer a temple tophilosophy. The majestic style is characterised by obelisks andtriumphal arches; the mysterious style by moss and by grottoes; while alake is appropriate to the dreamy style. There is even the fantasticstyle, of which the most beautiful specimen might have been lately seenin a garden at Würtemberg--for there might have been met successively awild boar, a hermit, several sepulchres, and a barque detaching itselffrom the shore of its own accord, in order to lead you into a boudoirwhere water-spouts lave you when you are settling yourself down upon asofa. 

Before this horizon of marvels, Bouvard and Pécuchet experienced a kindof bedazzlement. The fantastic style appeared to them reserved forprinces. The temple to philosophy would be cumbersome. The votiveoffering of the Madonna would have no signification, having regard tothe lack of assassins, and--so much the worse for the colonists and thetravellers--the American plants would cost too much. But the rocks werepossible, as well as the shattered trees, the immortelles, and the moss;and in their enthusiasm for new ideas, after many experiments, with theassistance of a single man-servant, and for a trifling sum, they madefor themselves a residence which had no analogy to it in the entiredepartment. 

The elm hedge, open here and there, allowed the light of day to fall onthe thicket, which was full of winding paths in the fashion of alabyrinth. They had conceived the idea of making in the espalier wall anarchway, through which the prospect could be seen. As the arch could notremain suspended, the result was an enormous breach and a fall ofwreckage to the ground. 

They had sacrificed the asparagus in order to build on the spot anEtruscan tomb, that is to say, a quadrilateral figure in dark plaster, six feet in height, and looking like a dog-hole. Four little pine treesat the corners flanked the monument, which was to be surmounted by anurn and enriched by an inscription. 

In the other part of the kitchen garden, a kind of Rialto projected overa basin, presenting on its margin encrusted shells of mussels. The soildrank up the water--no matter! they would contrive a glass bottom whichwould keep it back. 

The hut had been transformed into a rustic summer-house with the aid ofcoloured glass. 

At the top of the hillock, six trees, cut square, supported a tinhead-piece with the edges turned up, and the whole was meant to signifya Chinese pagoda. 

They had gone to the banks of the Orne to select granite, and had brokenit, marked the pieces with numbers, and carried them back themselves ina cart, then had joined the fragments together with cement, placing themone above the other in a mass; and in the middle of the grass arose arock resembling a gigantic potato. 

Something further was needed to complete the harmony. They pulled downthe largest linden tree they had (however, it was three quarters dead), and laid it down the entire length of the garden, in such a way that onewould imagine it had been carried thither by a torrent or levelled tothe ground by a thunderstorm. 

The task finished, Bouvard, who was on the steps, cried from a distance:

"Here! you can see best!"--"See best!" was repeated in the air. 

Pécuchet answered:

"I am going there!"--"Going there!"

"Hold on! 'Tis an echo!"--"Echo!"

The linden tree had hitherto prevented it from being produced, and itwas assisted by the pagoda, as it faced the barn, whose gables roseabove the row of trees. 

In order to try the effect of the echo, they amused themselves by givingvent to comical phrases: Bouvard yelled out language of a blackguarddescription. 

He had been several times at Falaise, under the pretence of going thereto receive money, and he always came back with little parcels, which helocked up in the chest of drawers. Pécuchet started one morning torepair to Bretteville, and returned very late with a basket, which hehid under his bed. Next day, when he awoke, Bouvard was surprised. Thefirst two yew trees of the principal walk, which the day before werestill spherical, had the appearance of peacocks, and a horn with twoporcelain knobs represented the beak and the eyes. Pécuchet had risen atdawn, and trembling lest he should be discovered, he had cut the twotrees according to the measurement given in the written instructionssent him by Dumouchel. 

For six months the others behind the two above mentioned assumed theforms of pyramids, cubes, cylinders, stags, or armchairs; but there wasnothing equal to the peacocks. Bouvard acknowledged it with manyeulogies. 

Under pretext of having forgotten his spade, he drew his comrade intothe labyrinth, for he had profited by Pécuchet's absence to do, himselftoo, something sublime. 

The gate leading into the fields was covered over with a coating ofplaster, under which were ranged in beautiful order five or six bowls ofpipes, representing Abd-el-Kader, negroes, naked women, horses' feet, and death's-heads. 

"Do you understand my impatience?"

"I rather think so!"

And in their emotion they embraced each other. 

Like all artists, they felt the need of being applauded, and Bouvardthought of giving a great dinner. 

"Take care!" said Pécuchet, "you are going to plunge intoentertainments. It is a whirlpool!"

The matter, however, was decided. Since they had come to live in thecountry, they had kept themselves isolated. Everybody, through eagernessto make their acquaintance, accepted their invitation, except the Countde Faverges, who had been summoned to the capital by business. They fellback on M. Hurel, his factotum. 

Beljambe, the innkeeper, formerly a _chef_ at Lisieux, was to cookcertain dishes; Germaine had engaged the services of the poultry-wench;and Marianne, Madame Bordin's servant-girl, would also come. Since fouro'clock the range was wide open; and the two proprietors, full ofimpatience, awaited their guests. 

Hurel stopped under the beech row to adjust his frock-coat. Then thecuré stepped forward, arrayed in a new cassock, and, a second later, M. Foureau, in a velvet waistcoat. The doctor gave his arm to his wife, who walked with some difficulty, assisting herself with her parasol. Astream of red ribbons fluttered behind them--it was the cap of MadameBordin, who was dressed in a lovely robe of shot silk. The gold chain ofher watch dangled over her breast, and rings glittered on both herhands, which were partly covered with black mittens. Finally appearedthe notary, with a Panama hat on his head, and an eyeglass--for theprofessional practitioner had not stifled in him the man of the world. The drawing-room floor was waxed so that one could not stand uprightthere. The eight Utrecht armchairs had their backs to the wall; a roundtable in the centre supported the liqueur case; and above themantelpiece could be seen the portrait of Père Bouvard. The shades, reappearing in the imperfect light, made the mouth grin and the eyessquint, and a slight mouldiness on the cheek-bones seemed to produce theillusion of real whiskers. The guests traced a resemblance between himand his son, and Madame Bordin added, glancing at Bouvard, that he musthave been a very fine man. 

After an hour's waiting, Pécuchet announced that they might pass intothe dining-room. 

The white calico curtains with red borders were, like those of thedrawing-room, completely drawn before the windows, and the sun's rayspassing across them, flung a brilliant light on the wainscotings, theonly ornament of which was a barometer. 

Bouvard placed the two ladies beside him, while Pécuchet had the mayoron his left and the curé on his right. 

They began with the oysters. They had the taste of mud. Bouvard wasannoyed, and was prodigal of excuses, and Pécuchet got up in order togo into the kitchen and make a scene with Beljambe. 

During the whole of the first course, which consisted of a brill with avol-au-vent and stewed pigeons, the conversation turned on the mode ofmanufacturing cider; after which they discussed what meats weredigestible or indigestible. Naturally, the doctor was consulted. Helooked at matters sceptically, like a man who had dived into the depthsof science, and yet did not brook the slightest contradiction. 

At the same time, with the sirloin of beef, Burgundy was supplied. Itwas muddy. Bouvard, attributing this accident to the rinsing of thebottles, got them to try three others without more success; then hepoured out some St. Julien, manifestly not long enough in bottle, andall the guests were mute. Hurel smiled without discontinuing; the heavysteps of the waiters resounded over the flooring. 

Madame Vaucorbeil, who was dumpy and waddling in her gait (she was nearher confinement), had maintained absolute silence. Bouvard, not knowingwhat to talk to her about, spoke of the theatre at Caen. 

"My wife never goes to the play, " interposed the doctor. 

M. Marescot observed that, when he lived in Paris, he used to go only tothe Italian operas. 

"For my part, " said Bouvard, "I used to pay for a seat in the pitsometimes at the Vaudeville to hear farces. "

Foureau asked Madame Bordin whether she liked farces. 

"That depends on what kind they are, " she said. 

The mayor rallied her. She made sharp rejoinders to his pleasantries. Then she mentioned a recipe for preparing gherkins. However, her talentsfor housekeeping were well known, and she had a little farm, which wasadmirably looked after. 

Foureau asked Bouvard, "Is it your intention to sell yours?"

"Upon my word, up to this I don't know what to do exactly. "

"What! not even the Escalles piece?" interposed the notary. "That wouldsuit you, Madame Bordin. "

The widow replied in an affected manner:

"The demands of M. Bouvard would be too high. "

"Perhaps someone could soften him. "

"I will not try. "

"Bah! if you embraced him?"

"Let us try, all the same, " said Bouvard. 

And he kissed her on both cheeks, amid the plaudits of the guests. 

Almost immediately after this incident, they uncorked the champagne, whose detonations caused an additional sense of enjoyment. Pécuchet madea sign; the curtains opened, and the garden showed itself. 

In the twilight it looked dreadful. The rockery, like a mountain, covered the entire grass plot; the tomb formed a cube in the midst ofspinaches, the Venetian bridge a circumflex accent over thekidney-beans, and the summer-house beyond a big black spot, for they hadburned its straw roof to make it more poetic. The yew trees, shaped likestags or armchairs, succeeded to the tree that seemed thunder-stricken, extending transversely from the elm row to the arbour, where tomatoeshung like stalactites. Here and there a sunflower showed its yellowdisk. The Chinese pagoda, painted red, seemed a lighthouse on thehillock. The peacocks' beaks, struck by the sun, reflected back therays, and behind the railed gate, now freed from its boards, a perfectlyflat landscape bounded the horizon. 

In the face of their guests' astonishment Bouvard and Pécuchetexperienced a veritable delight. 

Madame Bordin admired the peacocks above all; but the tomb was notappreciated, nor the cot in flames, nor the wall in ruins. Then each inturn passed over the bridge. In order to fill the basin, Bouvard andPécuchet had been carrying water in carts all the morning. It hadescaped between the foundation stones, which were imperfectly joinedtogether, and covered them over again with lime. 

While they were walking about, the guests indulged in criticism. 

"In your place that's what I'd have done. "--"The green peas arelate. "--"Candidly, this corner is not all right. "--"With such pruningyou'll never get fruit. "

Bouvard was obliged to answer that he did not care a jot for fruit. 

As they walked past the hedge of trees, he said with a sly air:

"Ah! here's a lady that puts us out of countenance: a thousand excuses!"

It was a well-seasoned joke; everyone knew "the lady in plaster. "

Finally, after many turns in the labyrinth, they arrived in front of thegate with the pipes. Looks of amazement were exchanged. Bouvard observedthe faces of his guests, and, impatient to learn what was their opinion, asked:

"What do you say to it?"

Madame Bordin burst out laughing. All the others followed her example, after their respective ways--the curé giving a sort of cluck like a hen, Hurel coughing, the doctor mourning over it, while his wife had anervous spasm, and Foureau, an unceremonious type of man, breaking anAbd-el-Kader and putting it into his pocket as a souvenir. 

When they had left the tree-hedge, Bouvard, to astonish the company withthe echo, exclaimed with all his strength:

"Servant, ladies!"

Nothing! No echo. This was owing to the repairs made in the barn, thegable and the roof having been demolished. 

The coffee was served on the hillock; and the gentlemen were about tobegin a game of ball, when they saw in front of them, behind the railedfence, a man staring at them. 

He was lean and sunburnt, with a pair of red trousers in rags, a bluewaistcoat, no shirt, his black beard cut like a brush. He articulated, in a hoarse voice:

"Give me a glass of wine!"

The mayor and the Abbé Jeufroy had at once recognised him. He hadformerly been a joiner at Chavignolles. 

"Come, Gorju! take yourself off, " said M. Foureau. "You ought not to beasking for alms. "

"I! Alms!" cried the exasperated man. "I served seven years in the warsin Africa. I've only just got up out of a hospital. Good God! must Iturn cutthroat?"

His anger subsided of its own accord, and, with his two fists on hiships, he surveyed the assembled guests with a melancholy and defiantair. The fatigue of bivouacs, absinthe, and fever, an entire existenceof wretchedness and debauchery, stood revealed in his dull eyes. Hiswhite lips quivered, exposing the gums. The vast sky, empurpled, enveloped him in a blood-red light; and his obstinacy in remaining therecaused a species of terror. 

Bouvard, to have done with him, went to look for the remnants of abottle. The vagabond swallowed the wine greedily, then disappearedamongst the oats, gesticulating as he went. 

After this, blame was attached by those present to Bouvard. Suchkindnesses encouraged disorder. But Bouvard, irritated at theill-success of his garden, took up the defence of the people. They allbegan talking at the same time. 

Foureau extolled the government. Hurel saw nothing in the world butlanded property. The Abbé Jeufroy complained of the fact that it did notprotect religion. Pécuchet attacked the taxes. Madame Bordin exclaimedat intervals, "As for me, I detest the Republic. " And the doctordeclared himself in favour of progress: "For, indeed, gentlemen, we haveneed of reforms. "

"Possibly, " said Foureau; "but all these ideas are injurious tobusiness. "

"I laugh at business!" cried Pécuchet. 

Vaucorbeil went on: "At least let us make allowance for abilities. "

Bouvard would not go so far. 

"That is your opinion, " replied the doctor; "there's an end of you, then! Good evening. And I wish you a deluge in order to sail in yourbasin!"

"And I, too, am going, " said M. Foureau the next moment; and, pointingto the pocket where the Abd-el-Kader was, "If I feel the want ofanother, I'll come back. "

The curé, before departing, timidly confided to Pécuchet that he did notthink this imitation of a tomb in the midst of vegetables quitedecorous. Hurel, as he withdrew, made a low bow to the company. M. Marescot had disappeared after dessert. Madame Bordin again went overher recipe for gherkins, promised a second for plums with brandy, andmade three turns in the large walk; but, passing close to the lindentree, the end of her dress got caught, and they heard her murmuring:

"My God! what a piece of idiocy this tree is!"

At midnight the two hosts, beneath the arbour, gave vent to theirresentment. 

No doubt one might find fault with two or three little details here andthere in the dinner; and yet the guests had gorged themselves likeogres, showing that it was not so bad. But, as for the garden, so muchdepreciation sprang from the blackest jealousy. And both of them, lashing themselves into a rage, went on:

"Ha! water is needed in the basin, is it? Patience! they may see even aswan and fishes in it!"

"They scarcely noticed the pagoda. "

"To pretend that the ruins are not proper is an imbecile's view. "

"And the tomb objectionable! Why objectionable? Hasn't a man the rightto erect one in his own demesne? I even intend to be buried in it!"

"Don't talk like that!" said Pécuchet. 

Then they passed the guests in review. 

"The doctor seems to me a nice snob!"

"Did you notice the sneer of M. Marescot before the portrait?"

"What a low fellow the mayor is! When you dine in a house, hang it! youshould show some respect towards the curios. "

"Madame Bordin!" said Bouvard. 

"Ah! that one's a schemer. Don't annoy me by talking about her. "

Disgusted with society, they resolved to see nobody any more, but liveexclusively by themselves and for themselves. 

And they spent days in the wine-cellar, picking the tartar off thebottles, re-varnished all the furniture, enamelled the rooms; and eachevening, as they watched the wood burning, they discussed the bestsystem of fuel. 

Through economy they tried to smoke hams, and attempted to do thewashing themselves. Germaine, whom they inconvenienced, used to shrugher shoulders. When the time came for making preserves she got angry, and they took up their station in the bakehouse. It was a disusedwash-house, where there was, under the faggots, a big, old-fashionedtub, excellently fitted for their projects, the ambition having seizedthem to manufacture preserves. 

Fourteen glass bottles were filled with tomatoes and green peas. Theycoated the stoppers with quicklime and cheese, attached to the rims silkcords, and then plunged them into boiling water. It evaporated; theypoured in cold water; the difference of temperature caused the bowls toburst. Only three of them were saved. Then they procured old sardineboxes, put veal cutlets into them, and plunged them into a vessel ofboiling water. They came out as round as balloons. The cold flattenedthem out afterwards. To continue their experiments, they shut up inother boxes eggs, chiccory, lobsters, a hotchpotch of fish, and asoup!--and they applauded themselves like M. Appert, "on having fixedthe seasons. " Such discoveries, according to Pécuchet, carried himbeyond the exploits of conquerors. 

They improved upon Madame Bordin's pickles by spicing the vinegar withpepper; and their brandy plums were very much superior. By the processof steeping ratafia, they obtained raspberry and absinthe. With honeyand angelica in a cask of Bagnolles, they tried to make Malaga wine; andthey likewise undertook the manufacture of champagne! The bottles ofChâblis diluted with water must burst of themselves. Then he no longerwas doubtful of success. 

Their studies widening, they came to suspect frauds in all articles offood. They cavilled with the baker on the colour of his bread; they madethe grocer their enemy by maintaining that he adulterated his chocolate. They went to Falaise for a jujube, and, even under the apothecary's owneyes, they submitted his paste to the test of water. It assumed theappearance of a piece of bacon, which indicated gelatine. 

After this triumph, their pride rose to a high pitch. They bought up thestock of a bankrupt distiller, and soon there arrived in the housesieves, barrels, funnels, skimmers, filters, and scales, withoutcounting a bowl of wood with a ball attached and a Moreshead still, which required a reflecting-furnace with a basket funnel. They learnedhow sugar is clarified, and the different kinds of boilings, the largeand the small system of boiling twice over, the blowing system, themethods of making up in balls, the reduction of sugar to a viscousstate, and the making of burnt sugar. But they longed to use the still;and they broached the fine liqueurs, beginning with the aniseed cordial. The liquid nearly always drew away the materials with it, or rather theystuck together at the bottom; at other times they were mistaken as tothe amount of the ingredients. Around them shone great copper pans;egg-shaped vessels projected their narrow openings; saucepans hung fromthe walls. Frequently one of them culled herbs on the table, while theother made the ball swing in the suspended bowl. They stirred theladles; they tasted the mashes. 

Bouvard, always in a perspiration, had no garment on save his shirt andhis trousers, drawn up to the pit of his stomach by his short braces;but, giddy as a bird, he would forget the opening in the centre of thecucurbit, or would make the fire too strong. 

Pécuchet kept muttering calculations, motionless in his long blouse, akind of child's smock-frock with sleeves; and they looked uponthemselves as very serious people engaged in very useful occupations. 

At length they dreamed of a cream which would surpass all others. Theywould put into it coriander as in Kummel, kirsch as in Maraschino, hyssop as in Chartreuse, amber-seed as in Vespetro cordial, and sweetcalamus as in Krambambuly; and it would be coloured red with sandalwood. But under what name should they introduce it for commercialpurposes?--for they would want a name easy to retain and yet fanciful. Having turned the matter over a long time, they determined that itshould be called "Bouvarine. "

About the end of autumn stains appeared in the three glass bowlscontaining the preserves. The tomatoes and green peas were rotten. Thatmust have been due to the way they had stopped up the vessels. Then theproblem of stoppage tormented them. In order to try the new methods, they required money; and the farm had eaten up their resources. 

Many times tenants had offered themselves; but Bouvard would not havethem. His principal farm-servant carried on the cultivation according tohis directions, with a risky economy, to such an extent that the cropsdiminished and everything was imperilled; and they were talking abouttheir embarrassments when Maître Gouy entered the laboratory, escortedby his wife, who remained timidly in the background. 

Thanks to all the dressings they had got, the lands were improved, andhe had come to take up the farm again. He ran it down. In spite of alltheir toils, the profits were uncertain; in short, if he wanted it, thatwas because of his love for the country, and his regret for such goodmasters. 

They dismissed him coldly. He came back the same evening. 

Pécuchet had preached at Bouvard; they were on the point of giving way. Gouy asked for a reduction of rent; and when the others protested, hebegan to bellow rather than speak, invoking the name of God, enumeratinghis labours, and extolling his merits. When they called on him to statehis terms, he hung down his head instead of answering. Then his wife, seated near the door, with a big basket on her knees, made similarprotestations, screeching in a sharp voice, like a hen that has beenhurt. 

At last the lease was agreed on, the rent being fixed at three thousandfrancs a year--a third less than it had been formerly. 

Before they had separated, Maître Gouy offered to buy up the stock, andthe bargaining was renewed. 

The valuation of the chattels occupied fifteen days. Bouvard was dyingof fatigue. He let everything go for a sum so contemptible that Gouy atfirst opened his eyes wide, and exclaiming, "Agreed!" slapped his palm. 

After which the proprietors, following the old custom, proposed thatthey should take a "nip" at the house, and Pécuchet opened a bottle ofhis Malaga, less through generosity than in the hope of elicitingeulogies on the wine. 

But the husbandman said, with a sour look, "It's like liquorice syrup. "And his wife, "in order to get rid of the taste, " asked for a glass ofbrandy. 

A graver matter engaged their attention. All the ingredients of the"Bouvarine" were now collected. They heaped them together in thecucurbit, with the alcohol, lighted the fire, and waited. However, Pécuchet, annoyed by the misadventure about the Malaga, took the tinboxes out of the cupboard and pulled the lid off the first, then off thesecond, and then off the third. He angrily flung them down, and calledout to Bouvard. The latter had fastened the cock of the worm in order totry the effect on the preserves. 

The disillusion was complete. The slices of veal were like boiledboot-soles; a muddy fluid had taken the place of the lobster; thefish-stew was unrecognisable; mushroom growths had sprouted over thesoup, and an intolerable smell tainted the laboratory. 

Suddenly, with the noise of a bombshell, the still burst into twentypieces, which jumped up to the ceiling, smashing the pots, flatteningout the skimmers and shattering the glasses. The coal was scatteredabout, the furnace was demolished, and next day Germaine found a spatulain the yard. 

The force of the steam had broken the instrument to such an extent thatthe cucurbit was pinned to the head of the still. 

Pécuchet immediately found himself squatted behind the vat, and Bouvardlay like one who had fallen over a stool. For ten minutes they remainedin this posture, not daring to venture on a single movement, pale withterror, in the midst of broken glass. When they were able to recover thepower of speech, they asked themselves what was the cause of so manymisfortunes, and of the last above all? And they could understandnothing about the matter except that they were near being killed. Pécuchet finished with these words:

"It is, perhaps, because we do not know chemistry!"

[Illustration]

CHAPTER III. 

AMATEUR CHEMISTS. 

In order to understand chemistry they procured Regnault's course oflectures, and were, in the first place, informed that "simple bodies areperhaps compound. " They are divided into metalloids and metals--adifference in which, the author observes, there is "nothing absolute. "So with acids and bases, "a body being able to behave in the manner ofacids or of bases, according to circumstances. "

The notation appeared to them irregular. The multiple proportionsperplexed Pécuchet. 

"Since one molecule of _a_, I suppose, is combined with severalparticles of _b_, it seems to me that this molecule ought to be dividedinto as many particles; but, if it is divided, it ceases to be unity, the primordial molecule. In short, I do not understand. "

"No more do I, " said Bouvard. 

And they had recourse to a work less difficult, that of Girardin, fromwhich they acquired the certainty that ten litres of air weigh a hundredgrammes, that lead does not go into pencils, and that the diamond isonly carbon. 

What amazed them above all is that the earth, as an element, does notexist. 

They grasped the working of straw, gold, silver, the lye-washing oflinen, the tinning of saucepans; then, without the least scruple, Bouvard and Pécuchet launched into organic chemistry. 

What a marvel to find again in living beings the same substances ofwhich the minerals are composed! Nevertheless they experienced a sort ofhumiliation at the idea that their own personality contained phosphorus, like matches; albumen, like the whites of eggs; and hydrogen gas, likestreet-lamps. 

After colours and oily substances came the turn of fermentation. Thisbrought them to acids--and the law of equivalents once more confusedthem. They tried to elucidate it by means of the atomic theory, whichfairly swamped them. 

In Bouvard's opinion instruments would have been necessary to understandall this. The expense was very great, and they had incurred too muchalready. But, no doubt, Dr. Vaucorbeil could enlighten them. 

They presented themselves during his consultation hours. 

"I hear you, gentlemen. What is your ailment?"

Pécuchet replied that they were not patients, and, having stated theobject of their visit:

"We want to understand, in the first place, the higher atomicity. "

The physician got very red, then blamed them for being desirous to learnchemistry. 

"I am not denying its importance, you may be sure; but really they areshoving it in everywhere! It exercises a deplorable influence onmedicine. "

And the authority of his language was strengthened by the appearance ofhis surroundings. Over the chimney-piece trailed some diachylum andstrips for binding. In the middle of the desk stood the surgical case. Abasin in a corner was full of probes, and close to the wall there was arepresentation of a human figure deprived of the skin. 

Pécuchet complimented the doctor on it. 

"It must be a lovely study, anatomy. "

M. Vaucorbeil expatiated on the fascination he had formerly found indissections; and Bouvard inquired what were the analogies between theinterior of a woman and that of a man. 

In order to satisfy him, the doctor fetched from his library acollection of anatomical plates. 

"Take them with you! You can look at them more at your ease in your ownhouse. "

The skeleton astonished them by the prominence of the jawbone, the holesfor the eyes, and the frightful length of the hands. 

They stood in need of an explanatory work. They returned to M. Vaucorbeil's residence, and, thanks to the manual of Alexander Lauth, they learned the divisions of the frame, wondering at the backbone, sixteen times stronger, it is said, than if the Creator had made itstraight (why sixteen times exactly?). The metacarpals drove Bouvardcrazy; and Pécuchet, who was in a desperate state over the cranium, lostcourage before the sphenoid, although it resembles a Turkish or"Turkesque" saddle. 

As for the articulations, they were hidden under too many ligaments; sothey attacked the muscles. But the insertions were not easilydiscovered; and when they came to the vertebral grooves they gave it upcompletely. 

Then Pécuchet said:

"If we took up chemistry again, would not this be only utilising thelaboratory?"

Bouvard protested, and he thought he had a recollection of artificialcorpses being manufactured according to the custom of hot countries. 

Barberou, with whom he communicated, gave him some information about thematter. For ten francs a month they could have one of the manikins of M. Auzoux; and the following week the carrier from Falaise deposited beforetheir gate an oblong box. 

Full of emotion, they carried it into the bakehouse. When the boardswere unfastened, the straw fell down, the silver paper slipped off, andthe anatomical figure made its appearance. 

It was brick-coloured, without hair or skin, and variegated withinnumerable strings, red, blue, and white. It did not look like acorpse, but rather like a kind of plaything, very ugly, very clean, andsmelling of varnish. 

They next took off the thorax; and they perceived the two lungs, like apair of sponges, the heart like a big egg, slightly sidewise behind thediaphragm, the kidneys, the entire bundle of entrails. 

"To work!" said Pécuchet. The day and the evening were spent at it. Theyhad put blouses on, just as medical students do in the dissecting-rooms;and, by the light of three candles, they were working at their pieces ofpasteboard, when a fist knocked at the door. 

"Open!"

It was M. Foureau, followed by the keeper. 

Germaine's masters were pleased to show him the manikin. She had rushedimmediately to the grocer's shop to tell the thing, and the wholevillage now imagined that they had a real corpse concealed in theirhouse. Foureau, yielding to the public clamour, had come to make sureabout the fact. A number of persons, anxious for information, stoodoutside the porch. 

When he entered, the manikin was lying on its side, and the muscles ofthe face, having been loosened, caused a monstrous protrusion, andlooked frightful. 

"What brings you here?" said Pécuchet. 

Foureau stammered: "Nothing, nothing at all. " And, taking up one of thepieces from the table, "What is this?"

"The buccinator, " replied Bouvard. 

Foureau said nothing, but smiled in a sly fashion, jealous of theirhaving an amusement which he could not afford. 

The two anatomists pretended to be pursuing their investigations. Thepeople outside, getting bored with waiting, made their way into thebakehouse, and, as they began pushing one another a little, the tableshook. 

"Ah! this is too annoying, " exclaimed Pécuchet. "Let us be rid of thepublic!"

The keeper made the busybodies take themselves off. 

"Very well, " said Bouvard; "we don't want anyone. "

Foureau understood the allusion, and put it to them whether, not beingmedical men, they had the right to keep such an object in theirpossession. However, he was going to write to the prefect. 

What a country district it was! There could be nothing more foolish, barbarous, and retrograde. The comparison which they instituted betweenthemselves and the others consoled them--they felt a longing to sufferin the cause of science. 

The doctor, too, came to see them. He disparaged the model as too farremoved from nature, but took advantage of the occasion to give them alecture. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet were delighted; and at their request M. Vaucorbeillent them several volumes out of his library, declaring at the same timethat they would not reach the end of them. They took note of the casesof childbirth, longevity, obesity, and extraordinary constipation givenin the _Dictionary of Medical Sciences_. Would that they had known thefamous Canadian, De Beaumont, the polyphagi, Tarare and Bijou, thedropsical woman from the department of Eure, the Piedmontese who wentevery twenty days to the water-closet, Simon de Mirepoix, who wasossified at the time of his death, and that ancient mayor of Angoulêmewhose nose weighed three pounds!

The brain inspired them with philosophic reflections. They easilydistinguished in the interior of it the _septum lucidum_, composed oftwo lamellæ, and the pineal gland, which is like a little red pea. Butthere were peduncles and ventricles, arches, columns, strata, ganglions, and fibres of all kinds, and the foramen of Pacchioni and the "body" ofPaccini; in short, an inextricable mass of details, enough to wear theirlives out. 

Sometimes, in a fit of dizziness, they would take the figure completelyto pieces, then would get perplexed about putting back each part in itsproper place. This was troublesome work, especially after breakfast, and it was not long before they were both asleep, Bouvard with droopingchin and protruding stomach, and Pécuchet with his hands over his headand both elbows on the table. 

Often at that moment M. Vaucorbeil, having finished his morning rounds, would open the door. 

"Well, comrades, how goes anatomy?"

"Splendidly, " they would answer. 

Then he would put questions to them, for the pleasure of confusing them. 

When they were tired of one organ they went on to another, in this waytaking up and then throwing aside the heart, the stomach, the ear, theintestines; for the pasteboard manikin bored them to death, despitetheir efforts to become interested in him. At last the doctor came onthem suddenly, just as they were nailing him up again in his box. 

"Bravo! I expected that. "

At their age they could not undertake such studies; and the smile thataccompanied these words wounded them deeply. 

What right had he to consider them incapable? Did science belong to thisgentleman, as if he were himself a very superior personage? Then, accepting his challenge, they went all the way to Bayeux to purchasebooks there. What they required was physiology, and a second-handbookseller procured for them the treatises of Richerand and Adelon, celebrated at the period. 

All the commonplaces as to ages, sexes, and temperaments appeared tothem of the highest importance. They were much pleased to learn thatthere are in the tartar of the teeth three kinds of animalcules, thatthe seat of taste is in the tongue, and the sensation of hunger in thestomach. 

In order to grasp its functions better, they regretted that they had notthe faculty of ruminating, as Montègre, M. Gosse, and the brother ofGerard had; and they masticated slowly, reduced the food to pulp, andinsalivated it, accompanying in thought the alimentary mass passing intotheir intestines, and following it with methodical scrupulosity and analmost religious attention to its final consequences. 

In order to produce digestion artificially, they piled up meat in abottle, in which was the gastric juice of a duck, and they carried itunder their armpits for a fortnight, without any other result savemaking their persons smell unpleasantly. You might have seen themrunning along the high-road in wet clothes under a burning sun. This wasfor the purpose of determining whether thirst is quenched by theapplication of water to the epidermis. They came back out of breath, both of them having caught cold. 

Experiments in hearing, speech, and vision were then made in a livelyfashion; but Bouvard made a show-off on the subject of generation. 

Pécuchet's reserve with regard to this question had always surprisedhim. His friend's ignorance appeared to him so complete that Bouvardpressed him for an explanation, and Pécuchet, colouring, ended by makingan avowal. 

Some rascals had on one occasion dragged him into a house of ill-fame, from which he made his escape, preserving himself for the woman whom hemight fall in love with some day. A fortunate opportunity had never cometo him, so that, what with bashfulness, limited means, obstinacy, theforce of custom, at fifty-two years, and in spite of his residence inthe capital, he still possessed his virginity. 

Bouvard found difficulty in believing it; then he laughed hugely, butstopped on perceiving tears in Pécuchet's eyes--for he had not beenwithout attachments, having by turns been smitten by a rope-dancer, thesister-in-law of an architect, a bar-maid, and a young washerwoman; andthe marriage had even been arranged when he had discovered that she was_enceinte_ by another man. 

Bouvard said to him:

"There is always a way to make up for lost time. Come--no sadness! Iwill take it on myself, if you like. "

Pécuchet answered, with a sigh, that he need not think any more aboutit; and they went on with their physiology. 

Is it true that the surfaces of our bodies are always letting out asubtle vapour? The proof of it is that the weight of a man is decreasingevery minute. If each day what is wanting is added and what is excessivesubtracted, the health would be kept in perfect equilibrium. Sanctorius, the discoverer of this law, spent half a century weighing his food everyday together with its excretions, and took the weights himself, givinghimself no rest, save for the purpose of writing down his computations. 

They tried to imitate Sanctorius; but, as their scales could not bearthe weight of both of them, it was Pécuchet who began. 

He took his clothes off, in order not to impede the perspiration, and hestood on the platform of the scales perfectly naked, exposing to view, in spite of his modesty, his unusually long torso, resembling acylinder, together with his short legs and his brown skin. Beside him, on his chair, his friend read for him:

"'Learned men maintain that animal heat is developed by the contractionsof the muscles, and that it is possible by moving the thorax and thepelvic regions to raise the temperature of a warm bath. '"

Bouvard went to look for their bathing-tub, and, when everything wasready, plunged into it, provided with a thermometer. The wreckage of thedistillery, swept towards the end of the room, presented in the shadowthe indistinct outlines of a hillock. Every now and then they could hearthe mice nibbling; there was a stale odour of aromatic plants, andfinding it rather agreeable, they chatted serenely. 

However, Bouvard felt a little cool. 

"Move your members about!" said Pécuchet. 

He moved them, without at all changing with the thermometer. "'Tisdecidedly cold. "

"I am not hot either, " returned Pécuchet, himself seized with a fit ofshivering. "But move about your pelvic regions--move them about!"

Bouvard spread open his thighs, wriggled his sides, balanced hisstomach, puffed like a whale, then looked at the thermometer, which wasalways falling. 

"I don't understand this at all! Anyhow, I am stirring myself!"

"Not enough!"

And he continued his gymnastics. 

This had gone on for three hours when once more he grasped the tube. 

"What! twelve degrees! Oh, good-night! I'm off to bed!"

A dog came in, half mastiff, half hound, mangy, with yellowish hair andlolling tongue. 

What were they to do? There was no bell, and their housekeeper was deaf. They were quaking, but did not venture to budge, for fear of beingbitten. 

Pécuchet thought it a good idea to hurl threats at him, and at the sametime to roll his eyes about. 

Then the dog began to bark; and he jumped about the scales, in whichPécuchet, by clinging on to the cords and bending his knees, tried toraise himself up as high as ever he could. 

"You're getting your death of cold up there!" said Bouvard; and he beganmaking smiling faces at the dog, while pretending to give him things. 

The dog, no doubt, understood these advances. Bouvard went so far as tocaress him, stuck the animal's paws on his shoulders, and rubbed themwith his finger-nails. 

"Hollo! look here! there, he's off with my breeches!"

The dog cuddled himself upon them, and lay quiet. 

At last, with the utmost precautions, they ventured the one to come downfrom the platform of the scales, and the other to get out of thebathing-tub; and when Pécuchet had got his clothes on again, he gavevent to this exclamation:

"You, my good fellow, will be of use for our experiments. "

What experiments? They might inject phosphorus into him, and then shuthim up in a cellar, in order to see whether he would emit fire throughthe nostrils. 

But how were they to inject it? and furthermore, they could not getanyone to sell them phosphorus. 

They thought of putting him under a pneumatic bell, of making him inhalegas, and of giving him poison to drink. All this, perhaps, would not befunny! Eventually, they thought the best thing they could do was toapply a steel magnet to his spinal marrow. 

Bouvard, repressing his emotion, handed some needles on a plate toPécuchet, who fixed them against the vertebræ. They broke, slipped, andfell on the ground. He took others, and quickly applied them at random. The dog burst his bonds, passed like a cannon-ball through the window, ran across the yard to the vestibule, and presented himself in thekitchen. 

Germaine screamed when she saw him soaked with blood, and with twineround his paws. 

Her masters, who had followed him, came in at the same moment. He madeone spring and disappeared. 

The old servant turned on them. 

"This is another of your tomfooleries, I'm sure! And my kitchen, too!It's nice! This perhaps will drive him mad! People are in jail who arenot as bad as you!"

They got back to the laboratory in order to examine the magneticneedles. 

Not one of them had the least particle of the filings drawn off. 

Then Germaine's assumption made them uneasy. He might get rabies, comeback unawares, and make a dash at them. 

Next day they went making inquiries everywhere, and for many years theyturned up a by-path whenever they saw in the open country a dog at allresembling this one. 

Their other experiments were unsuccessful. Contrary to the statements inthe text-books, the pigeons which they bled, whether their stomachs werefull or empty, died in the same space of time. Kittens sunk under waterperished at the end of five minutes; and a goose, which they had stuffedwith madder, presented periostea that were perfectly white. 

The question of nutrition puzzled them. 

How did it happen that the same juice is produced by bones, blood, lymph, and excrementitious materials? But one cannot follow themetamorphoses of an article of food. The man who uses only one of themis chemically equal to him who absorbs several. Vauquelin, having made acalculation of all the lime contained in the oats given as food to ahen, found a greater quantity of it in the shells of her eggs. So, then, a creation of substance takes place. In what way? Nothing is known aboutit. 

It is not even known what is the strength of the heart. Borelli says itis what is necessary for lifting a weight of one hundred and eightythousand pounds, while Kiell estimates it at about eight ounces; andfrom this they drew the conclusion that physiology is--as a well-wornphrase expresses it--the romance of medicine. As they were unable tounderstand it, they did not believe in it. 

A month slipped away in doing nothing. Then they thought of theirgarden. The dead tree, displayed in the middle of it, was annoying, andaccordingly, they squared it. This exercise fatigued them. Bouvard veryoften found it necessary to get the blacksmith to put his tools inorder. 

One day, as he was making his way to the forge, he was accosted by a mancarrying a canvas bag on his back, who offered to sell him almanacs, pious books, holy medals, and lastly, the _Health Manual_ of FrançoisRaspail. [5]

This little book pleased him so much that he wrote to Barberou to sendhim the large work. Barberou sent it on, and in his letter mentioned anapothecary's shop for the prescriptions given in the work. 

The simplicity of the doctrine charmed them. All diseases proceed fromworms. They spoil the teeth, make the lungs hollow, enlarge the liver, ravage the intestines, and cause noises therein. The best thing forgetting rid of them is camphor. Bouvard and Pécuchet adopted it. Theytook it in snuff, they chewed it and distributed it in cigarettes, inbottles of sedative water and pills of aloes. They even undertook thecare of a hunchback. It was a child whom they had come across onefair-day. His mother, a beggar woman, brought him to them every morning. They rubbed his hump with camphorated grease, placed there for twentyminutes a mustard poultice, then covered it over with diachylum, and, inorder to make sure of his coming back, gave him his breakfast. 

As his mind was fixed on intestinal worms, Pécuchet noticed a singularspot on Madame Bordin's cheek. The doctor had for a long time beentreating it with bitters. Round at first as a twenty-sou piece, thisspot had enlarged and formed a red circle. They offered to cure it forher. She consented, but made it a condition that the ointment should beapplied by Bouvard. She took a seat before the window, unfastened theupper portion of her corset, and remained with her cheek turned up, looking at him with a glance of her eye which would have been dangerouswere it not for Pécuchet's presence. In the prescribed doses, and inspite of the horror felt with regard to mercury, they administeredcalomel. One month afterwards Madame Bordin was cured. She became apropagandist in their behalf, and the tax-collector, the mayor'ssecretary, the mayor himself, and everybody in Chavignolles suckedcamphor by the aid of quills. 

However, the hunchback did not get straight; the collector gave up hiscigarette; it stopped up his chest twice as much. Foureau madecomplaints that the pills of aloes gave him hemorrhoids. Bouvard got astomachache, and Pécuchet fearful headaches. They lost confidence inRaspail, but took care to say nothing about it, fearing that they mightlessen their own importance. 

They now exhibited great zeal about vaccine, learned how to bleed peopleover cabbage leaves, and even purchased a pair of lancets. 

They accompanied the doctor to the houses of the poor, and thenconsulted their books. The symptoms noticed by the writers were notthose which they had just observed. As for the names of diseases, theywere Latin, Greek, French--a medley of every language. They are to becounted by thousands; and Linnæus's system of classification, with itsgenera and its species, is exceedingly convenient; but how was thespecies to be fixed? Then they got lost in the philosophy of medicine. They raved about the life-principle of Van Helmont, vitalism, Brownism, organicism, inquired of the doctor whence comes the germ of scrofula, towards what point the infectious miasma inclines, and the means in allcases of disease to distinguish the cause from its effects. 

"The cause and the effect are entangled in one another, " repliedVaucorbeil. 

His want of logic disgusted them--and they went by themselves to visitthe sick, making their way into the houses on the pretext ofphilanthropy. At the further end of rooms, on dirty mattresses, laypersons with faces hanging on one side, others who had them swollen orscarlet, or lemon-coloured, or very violet-hued, with pinched nostrils, trembling mouths, rattlings in the throat, hiccoughs, perspirations, andemissions like leather or stale cheese. 

They read the prescriptions of their physicians, and were surprised atthe fact that anodynes are sometimes excitants, and emetics purgatives, that the same remedy suits different ailments, and that a malady maydisappear under opposite systems of treatment. 

Nevertheless, they gave advice, got on the moral hobby again, and hadthe assurance to auscultate. Their imagination began to ferment. Theywrote to the king, in order that there might be established in Calvadosan institute of nurses for the sick, of which they would be theprofessors. 

They would go to the apothecary at Bayeux (the one at Falaise had alwaysa grudge against them on account of the jujube affair), and they gavehim directions to manufacture, like the ancients, _pila purgatoria_, that is to say, medicaments in the shape of pellets, which, by dint ofhandling, become absorbed in the individual. 

In accordance with the theory that by diminishing the heat we impede thewatery humours, they suspended in her armchair to the beams of theceiling a woman suffering from meningitis, and they were swinging herwith all their force when the husband, coming on the scene, kicked themout. Finally, they scandalised the curé thoroughly by introducing thenew fashion of thermometers in the rectum. 

Typhoid fever broke out in the neighbourhood. Bouvard declared that hewould not have anything to do with it. But the wife of Gouy, theirfarmer, came groaning to them. Her man was a fortnight sick, and M. Vaucorbeil was neglecting him. Pécuchet devoted himself to the case. 

Lenticular spots on the chest, pains in the joints, stomach distended, tongue red, these were all symptoms of dothienenteritis. Recalling thestatement of Raspail that by taking away the regulation of diet thefever may be suppressed, he ordered broth and a little meat. 

The doctor suddenly made his appearance. His patient was on the point ofeating, with two pillows behind his back, between his wife and Pécuchet, who were sustaining him. He drew near the bed, and flung the plate outthrough the window, exclaiming:

"This is a veritable murder!"

"Why?"

"You perforate the intestine, since typhoid fever is an alteration ofits follicular membrane. "

"Not always!"

And a dispute ensued as to the nature of fevers. Pécuchet believed thatthey were essential in themselves; Vaucorbeil made them dependent on ourbodily organs. 

"Therefore, I remove everything that might excite them excessively. "

"But regimen weakens the vital principle. "

"What twaddle are you talking with your vital principle? What is it? Whohas seen it?"

Pécuchet got confused. 

"Besides, " said the physician, "Gouy does not want food. "

The patient made a gesture of assent under his cotton nightcap. 

"No matter, he requires it!"

"Not a bit! his pulse is at ninety-eight!"

"What matters about his pulse?" And Pécuchet proceeded to giveauthorities. 

"Let systems alone!" said the doctor. 

Pécuchet folded his arms. "So then, you are an empiric?"

"By no means; but by observing----"

"But if one observes badly?"

Vaucorbeil took this phrase for an allusion to Madame Bordin's skineruption--a story about which the widow had made a great outcry, and therecollection of which irritated him. 

"To start with, it is necessary to have practised. "

"Those who revolutionised the science did not practise--Van Helmont, Boerhaave, Broussais himself. "

Without replying, Vaucorbeil stooped towards Gouy, and raising hisvoice:

"Which of us two do you select as your doctor?"

[Illustration: MUTUALLY BECOMING AFFLICTED, THEY LOOKED AT THEIRTONGUES]

The patient, who was falling asleep, perceived angry faces, and began toblubber. His wife did not know either what answer to make, for the onewas clever, but the other had perhaps a secret. 

"Very well, " said Vaucorbeil, "since you hesitate between a manfurnished with a diploma----"

Pécuchet sneered. 

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because a diploma is not always an argument. "

The doctor saw himself attacked in his means of livelihood, in hisprerogative, in his social importance. His wrath gave itself full vent. 

"We shall see that when you are brought up before the courts forillegally practising medicine!" Then, turning round to the farmer'swife, "Get him killed by this gentleman at your ease, and I'm hanged ifever I come back to your house!"

And he dashed past the beech trees, shaking his walking-stick as hewent. 

When Pécuchet returned, Bouvard was himself in a very excited state. Hehad just had a visit from Foureau, who was exasperated about hishemorrhoids. Vainly had he contended that they were a safeguard againstevery disease. Foureau, who would listen to nothing, had threatened himwith an action for damages. He lost his head over it. 

Pécuchet told him the other story, which he considered more serious, andwas a little shocked at Bouvard's indifference. 

Gouy, next day, had a pain in his abdomen. This might be due to theingestion of the food. Perhaps Vaucorbeil was not mistaken. A physician, after all, ought to have some knowledge of this! And a feeling ofremorse took possession of Pécuchet! He was afraid lest he might turnout a homicide. 

For prudence' sake they sent the hunchback away. But his mother cried agreat deal at his losing the breakfast, not to speak of the inflictionof having made them come every day from Barneval to Chavignolles. 

Foureau calmed down, and Gouy recovered his strength. At the presentmoment the cure was certain. A success like this emboldened Pécuchet. 

"If we studied obstetrics with the aid of one of these manikins----"

"Enough of manikins!"

"There are half-bodies made with skin invented for the use of studentsof midwifery. It seems to me that I could turn over the foetus!"

But Bouvard was tired of medicine. 

"The springs of life are hidden from us, the ailments too numerous, theremedies problematical. No reasonable definitions are to be found in theauthors of health, disease, diathesis, or even pus. "

However, all this reading had disturbed their brains. 

Bouvard, whenever he caught a cold, imagined he was getting inflammationof the lungs. When leeches did not abate a stitch in the side, he hadrecourse to a blister, whose action affected the kidneys. Then hefancied he had an attack of stone. 

Pécuchet caught lumbago while lopping the elm trees, and vomited afterhis dinner--a circumstance which frightened him very much. Then, noticing that his colour was rather yellow, suspected a liver complaint, and asked himself, "Have I pains?" and ended by having them. 

Mutually becoming afflicted, they looked at their tongues, felt eachother's pulses, made a change as to the use of mineral waters, purgedthemselves--and dreaded cold, heat, wind, rain, flies, and principallycurrents of air. 

Pécuchet imagined that taking snuff was fatal. Besides, sneezingsometimes causes the rupture of an aneurism; and so he gave up thesnuff-box altogether. From force of habit he would thrust his fingersinto it, then suddenly become conscious of his imprudence. 

As black coffee shakes the nerves, Bouvard wished to give up his halfcup; but he used to fall asleep after his meals, and was afraid when hewoke up, for prolonged sleep is a foreboding of apoplexy. 

Their ideal was Cornaro, that Venetian gentleman who by the regulationof his diet attained to an extreme old age. Without actually imitatinghim, they might take the same precautions; and Pécuchet took down fromhis bookshelves a _Manual of Hygiene_ by Doctor Morin. 

"How had they managed to live till now?"

Their favourite dishes were there prohibited. Germaine, in a state ofperplexity, did not know any longer what to serve up to them. 

Every kind of meat had its inconveniences. Puddings and sausages, redherrings, lobsters, and game are "refractory. " The bigger a fish is, themore gelatine it contains, and consequently the heavier it is. Vegetables cause acidity, macaroni makes people dream; cheeses, "considered generally, are difficult of digestion. " A glass of water inthe morning is "dangerous. " Everything you eat or drink beingaccompanied by a similar warning, or rather by these words: "Bad!""Beware of the abuse of it!" "Does not suit everyone!" Why bad? Whereinis the abuse of it? How are you to know whether a thing like this suitsyou?

What a problem was that of breakfast! They gave up coffee and milk onaccount of its detestable reputation, and, after that, chocolate, for itis "a mass of indigestible substances. " There remained, then, tea. But"nervous persons ought to forbid themselves the use of it completely. "Yet Decker, in the seventeenth century, prescribed twenty decalitres[6]of it a day, in order to cleanse the spongy parts of the pancreas. 

This direction shook Morin in their estimation, the more so as hecondemns every kind of head-dress, hats, women's caps, and men's caps--arequirement which was revolting to Pécuchet. 

Then they purchased Becquerel's treatise, in which they saw that pork isin itself "a good aliment, " tobacco "perfectly harmless in itscharacter, " and coffee "indispensable to military men. "

Up to that time they had believed in the unhealthiness of damp places. Not at all! Casper declares them less deadly than others. One does notbathe in the sea without refreshing one's skin. Bégin advises people tocast themselves into it while they are perspiring freely. Wine takenneat after soup is considered excellent for the stomach; Levy lays theblame on it of impairing the teeth. Lastly, the flannel waistcoat--thatsafeguard, that preserver of health, that palladium cherished by Bouvardand inherent to Pécuchet, without any evasions or fear of the opinionsof others--is considered unsuitable by some authors for men of aplethoric and sanguine temperament!

What, then, is hygiene? "Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error onthe other side, " M. Levy asserts; and Becquerel adds that it is not ascience. 

So then they ordered for their dinner oysters, a duck, pork and cabbage, cream, a Pont l'Evêque cheese, and a bottle of Burgundy. It was anenfranchisement, almost a revenge; and they laughed at Cornaro! It wasonly an imbecile that could be tyrannised over as he had been! Whatvileness to be always thinking about prolonging one's existence! Life isgood only on the condition that it is enjoyed. 

"Another piece?"

"Yes, I will. "

"So will I. "

"Your health. "

"Yours. "

"And let us laugh at the rest of the world. "

They became elated. Bouvard announced that he wanted three cups ofcoffee, though he was not a military man. Pécuchet, with his cap overhis ears, took pinch after pinch, and sneezed without fear; and, feelingthe need of a little champagne, they ordered Germaine to go at once tothe wine-shop to buy a bottle of it. The village was too far away; sherefused. Pécuchet got indignant:

"I command you--understand!--I command you to hurry off there. "

She obeyed, but, grumbling, resolved soon to have done with her masters;they were so incomprehensible and fantastic. 

Then, as in former days, they went to drink their coffee and brandy onthe hillock. 

The harvest was just over, and the stacks in the middle of the fieldsrose in dark heaps against the tender blue of a calm night. Nothing wasastir about the farms. Even the crickets were no longer heard. Thefields were all wrapped in sleep. 

The pair digested while they inhaled the breeze which blew refreshinglyagainst their cheeks. 

Above, the sky was covered with stars; some shone in clusters, others ina row, or rather alone, at certain distances from each other. A zone ofluminous dust, extending from north to south, bifurcated above theirheads. Amid these splendours there were vast empty spaces, and thefirmament seemed a sea of azure with archipelagoes and islets. 

"What a quantity!" exclaimed Bouvard. 

"We do not see all, " replied Pécuchet. "Behind the Milky Way are thenebulæ, and behind the nebulæ, stars still; the most distant isseparated from us by three millions of myriamètres. "[7]

He had often looked into the telescope of the Place Vendôme, and herecalled the figures. 

"The sun is a million times bigger than the earth; Sirius is twelvetimes the size of the sun; comets measure thirty-four millions ofleagues. "

"'Tis enough to make one crazy!" said Bouvard. 

He lamented his ignorance, and even regretted that he had not been inhis youth at the Polytechnic School. 

Then Pécuchet, turning him in the direction of the Great Bear, showedhim the polar star; then Cassiopeia, whose constellation forms a Y;Vega, of the Lyra constellation--all scintillating; and at the lowerpart of the horizon, the red Aldebaran. 

Bouvard, with his head thrown back, followed with difficulty the angles, quadrilaterals, and pentagons, which it is necessary to imagine in orderto make yourself at home in the sky. 

Pécuchet went on:

"The swiftness of light is eighty thousand leagues a second; one ray ofthe Milky Way takes six centuries to reach us; so that a star at themoment we observe it may have disappeared. Several are intermittent;others never come back; and they change positions. Every one of them isin motion; every one of them is passing on. "

"However, the sun is motionless. "

"It was believed to be so formerly. But to-day men of science declarethat it rushes towards the constellation of Hercules!"

This put Bouvard's ideas out of order--and, after a minute's reflection:

"Science is constructed according to the data furnished by a corner ofspace. Perhaps it does not agree with all the rest that we are ignorantof, which is much vaster, and which we cannot discover. "

So they talked, standing on the hillock, in the light of the stars; andtheir conversation was interrupted by long intervals of silence. 

At last they asked one another whether there were men in the stars. Whynot? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought tobe gigantic, those of Mars of middle stature, those of Venus very small. Unless it should be everywhere the same thing. There are merchants upthere, and gendarmes; they trade there; they fight there; they dethronekings there. 

Some shooting stars slipped suddenly, describing on the sky, as it were, the parabola of an enormous rocket. 

"Stop!" said Bouvard; "here are vanishing worlds. "

Pécuchet replied:

"If ours, in its turn, kicks the bucket, the citizens of the stars willnot be more moved than we are now. Ideas like this may pull down yourpride. "

"What is the object of all this?"

"Perhaps it has no object. "

"However----" And Pécuchet repeated two or three times "however, "without finding anything more to say. 

"No matter. I should very much like to know how the universe is made. "

"That should be in Buffon, " returned Bouvard, whose eyes were closing. 

"I am not equal to any more of it. I am going to bed. "

The _Epoques de la Nature_ informed them that a comet by knockingagainst the sun had detached one portion of it, which became the earth. First, the poles had cooled; all the waters had enveloped the globe;they subsided into the caverns; then the continents separated from eachother, and the beasts and man appeared. 

The majesty of creation engendered in them an amazement infinite asitself. Their heads got enlarged. They were proud of reflecting on suchlofty themes. 

The minerals ere long proved wearisome to them, and for distraction theysought refuge in the _Harmonies_ of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. 

Vegetable and terrestrial harmonies, aërial, aquatic, human, fraternal, and even conjugal--every one of them is here dealt with, not omittingthe invocations to Venus, to the Zephyrs, and to the Loves. Theyexhibited astonishment at fishes having fins, birds wings, seeds anenvelope; full of that philosophy which discovers virtuous intentions inNature, and regards her as a kind of St. Vincent de Paul, alwaysoccupied in performing acts of benevolence. 

Then they wondered at her prodigies, the water-spouts, the volcanoes, the virgin forests; and they bought M. Depping's work on the _Marvelsand Beauties of Nature in France_. Cantal possesses three of them, Hérault five, Burgundy two--no more, while Dauphiné reckons for itselfalone up to fifteen marvels. But soon we shall find no more of them. Thegrottoes with stalactites are stopped up; the burning mountains areextinguished; the natural ice-houses have become heated; and the oldtrees in which they said mass are falling under the leveller's axe, orare on the point of dying. 

Their curiosity next turned towards the beasts. 

They re-opened their Buffon, and got into ecstasies over the strangetastes of certain animals. 

But all the books are not worth one personal observation. They hurriedout into the farmyard, and asked the labourers whether they had seenbulls consorting with mares, hogs seeking after cows, and the males ofpartridges doing strange things among themselves. 

"Never in their lives. " They thought such questions even a little queerfor gentlemen of their age. 

They took a fancy to try abnormal unions. The least difficult is that ofthe he-goat and the ewe. Their farmer had not a he-goat in hispossession; a neighbour lent his, and, as it was the period of rutting, they shut the two beasts up in the press, concealing themselves behindthe casks in order that the event might be quietly accomplished. 

Each first ate a little heap of hay; then they ruminated; the ewe laydown, and she bleated continuously, while the he-goat, standing erect onhis crooked legs, with his big beard and his drooping ears, fixed on herhis eyes, which glittered in the shade. 

At length, on the evening of the third day, they deemed it advisable toassist nature, but the goat, turning round on Pécuchet, hit him in thelower part of the stomach with his horns. The ewe, seized with fear, began turning about in the press as if in a riding-school. Bouvard ranafter her, threw himself on top of her to hold her, and fell on theground with both hands full of wool. 

They renewed their experiments on hens and a drake, on a mastiff and asow, in the hope that monsters might be the result, not understandinganything about the question of species. 

This word denotes a group of individuals whose descendants reproducethemselves, but animals classed as of different species may possess thepower of reproduction, while others comprised in the same species havelost the capacity. They flattered themselves that they would obtainclear ideas on this subject by studying the development of germs; andPécuchet wrote to Dumouchel in order to get a microscope. 

By turns they put on the glass surface hairs, tobacco, finger-nails, anda fly's claw, but they forgot the drop of water which is indispensable;at other times it was the little lamel, and they pushed each otherforward, and put the instrument out of order; then, when they saw only ahaze, they blamed the optician. They went so far as to have doubts aboutthe microscope. Perhaps the discoveries that have been attributed to itare not so certain?

Dumouchel, in sending on the invoice to them, begged of them to collecton his account some serpent-stones and sea-urchins, of which he hadalways been an admirer, and which were commonly found in countrydistricts. In order to interest them in geology he sent them the_Lettres_ of Bertrand with the _Discours_ of Cuvier on the revolutionsof the globe. 

After the perusal of these two works they imagined the following stateof things:

First, an immense sheet of water, from which emerged promontoriesspeckled with lichens, and not one human being, not one sound. It was aworld silent, motionless, and bare; there long plants swayed to and froin a fog that resembled the vapour of a sweating-room. A red sunoverheated the humid atmosphere. Then volcanoes burst forth; the igneousrocks sent up mountains of liquid flame, and the paste of the streamingporphyry and basalt began to congeal. Third picture: in shallow seashave sprung up isles of madrepore; a cluster of palm trees overhangsthem here and there. There are shells like carriage wheels, tortoisesthree metres in length, lizards of sixty feet; amphibians stretch outamid the reeds their ostrich necks and crocodile jaws; winged serpentsfly about. Finally, on the large continents, huge mammifers make theirappearance, their limbs misshapen, like pieces of wood badly squared, their hides thicker than plates of bronze, or else shaggy, thick-lipped, with manes and crooked fangs. Flocks of mammoths browsedon the plains where, since, the Atlantic has been; the paleotherium, half horse, half tapir, overturned with his tumbling the ant-hills ofMontmartre; and the _cervus giganteus_ trembled under the chestnut treesat the growls of the bears of the caverns, who made the dog ofBeaugency, three times as big as a wolf, yelp in his den. 

All these periods had been separated from one another by cataclysms, ofwhich the latest is our Deluge. It was like a drama of fairyland inseveral acts, with man for apotheosis. 

They were astounded when they learned that there existed on stonesimprints of dragon-flies and birds' claws; and, having run through oneof the Roret manuals, they looked out for fossils. 

One afternoon, as they were turning over some flints in the middle ofthe high-road, the curé passed, and, accosting them in a wheedling tone:

"These gentlemen are busying themselves with geology. Very good. "

For he held this science in esteem. It confirmed the authority of theScriptures by proving the fact of the Deluge. 

Bouvard talked about coprolites, which are animals' excrements in apetrified state. 

The Abbé Jeufroy appeared surprised at the matter. After all, if it wereso, it was a reason the more for wondering at Providence. 

Pécuchet confessed that, up to the present, their inquiries had not beenfruitful; and yet the environs of Falaise, like all Jurassic soils, should abound in remains of animals. 

"I have been told, " replied the Abbé Jeufroy, "that the jawbone of anelephant was at one time found at Villers. "

However, one of his friends, M. Larsoneur, advocate, member of the barat Lisieux, and archæologist, would probably supply them withinformation about it. He had written a history of Port-en-Bessin, inwhich the discovery of an alligator was noticed. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet exchanged glances: the same hope took possession ofboth; and, in spite of the heat, they remained standing a long timequestioning the ecclesiastic, who sheltered himself from the sun under ablue cotton umbrella. The lower part of his face was rather heavy, andhis nose was pointed. He was perpetually smiling, or bent his head whilehe closed his eyelids. 

The church-bell rang the Angelus. 

"A very good evening, gentlemen! You will allow me, will you not?"

At his suggestion they waited three weeks for Larsoneur's reply. Atlength it arrived. 

The name of the man who had dug up the tooth of the mastodon was LouisBloche. Details were wanting. As to his history, it was comprised in oneof the volumes of the Lisieux Academy, and he could not lend his owncopy, as he was afraid of spoiling the collection. With regard to thealligator, it had been discovered in the month of November, 1825, underthe cliff of the Hachettes of Sainte-Honorine, near Port-en-Bessin, inthe arrondissement of Bayeux. His compliments followed. 

The obscurity that enshrouded the mastodon provoked in Pécuchet's mind alonging to search for it. He would fain have gone to Villers forthwith. 

Bouvard objected that, to save themselves a possibly useless andcertainly expensive journey, it would be desirable to make inquiries. Sothey wrote a letter to the mayor of the district, in which they askedhim what had become of one Louis Bloche. On the assumption of his death, his descendants or collateral relations might be able to enlighten themas to his precious discovery, when he made it, and in what public placein the township this testimony of primitive times was deposited? Werethere any prospects of finding similar ones? What was the cost of a manand a car for a day?

And vainly did they make application to the deputy-mayor, and then tothe first municipal councillor. They received no news from Villers. Nodoubt the inhabitants were jealous about their fossils--unless they hadsold them to the English. The journey to the Hachettes was determinedupon. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet took the public conveyance from Falaise to Caen. Then a covered car brought them from Caen to Bayeux; from Bayeux, theywalked to Port-en-Bessin. 

They had not been deceived. There were curious stones alongside theHachettes; and, assisted by the directions of the innkeeper, theysucceeded in reaching the strand. 

The tide was low. It exposed to view all its shingles, with a prairie ofsea-wrack as far as the edge of the waves. Grassy slopes cut the cliff, which was composed of soft brown earth that had hardened and become inits lower strata a rampart of greyish stone. Tiny streams of water keptflowing down incessantly, while in the distance the sea rumbled. Itseemed sometimes to suspend its throbbing, and then the only soundheard was the murmur of the little springs. 

They staggered over the sticky soil, or rather they had to jump overholes. 

Bouvard sat down on a mound overlooking the sea and contemplated thewaves, thinking of nothing, fascinated, inert. Pécuchet brought him overto the side of the cliff to show him a serpent-stone incrusted in therock, like a diamond in its gangue. It broke their nails; they wouldrequire instruments; besides, night was coming on. The sky was empurpledtowards the west, and the entire sea-shore was wrapped in shadow. In themidst of the blackish wrack the pools of water were growing wider. Thesea was coming towards them. It was time to go back. 

Next day, at dawn, with a mattock and a pick, they made an attack ontheir fossil, whose covering cracked. It was an ammonite nodosus, corroded at the ends but weighing quite six pounds; and in hisenthusiasm Pécuchet exclaimed:

"We cannot do less than present it to Dumouchel!"

They next chanced upon sponges, lampshells, orks--but no alligator. Indefault of it, they were hoping to get the backbone of a hippopotamus oran ichthyosaurus, the bones of any animals whatever that werecontemporaneous with the Deluge, when they discovered against the cliff, at a man's height, outlines which assumed the form of a gigantic fish. 

They deliberated as to the means by which they could get possession ofit. Bouvard would extricate it at the top, while Pécuchet beneath woulddemolish the rock in order to make it descend gently without spoilingit. 

Just as they were taking breath they saw above their heads acustom-house officer in a cloak, who was gesticulating with a commandingair. 

"Well! What! Let us alone!" And they went on with their work, Bouvard onthe tips of his toes, trapping with his mattock, Pécuchet, with his backbent, digging with his pick. 

But the custom-house officer reappeared farther down, in an open spacebetween the rocks, making repeated signals. They treated him withcontempt. An oval body bulged out under the thinned soil, and slopeddown, was on the point of slipping. 

Suddenly another individual, with a sabre, presented himself. 

"Your passports?"

It was the field-guard on his rounds, and, at the same instant, the manfrom the custom-house came up, having hastened through a ravine. 

"Take them into custody for me, Père Morin, or the cliff will fall in!"

"It is for a scientific object, " replied Pécuchet. 

Then a mass of stone fell, grazing them all four so closely that alittle more and they were dead men. 

When the dust was scattered, they recognised the mast of a ship, whichcrumbled under the custom-house officer's boot. 

Bouvard said with a sigh, "We did no great harm!"

"One should not do anything within the fortification limits, " returnedthe guard. 

"In the first place, who are you, in order that I may take out a summonsagainst you?"

Pécuchet refused to give his name, cried out against such injustice. 

"Don't argue! follow me!"

As soon as they reached the port a crowd of ragamuffins ran after them. Bouvard, red as a poppy, put on an air of dignity; Pécuchet, exceedinglypale, darted furious looks around; and these two strangers, carryingstones in their pocket-handkerchiefs, did not present a good appearance. Provisionally, they put them up at the inn, whose master on thethreshold guarded the entrance. Then the mason came to demand back histools. They were paying him for them, and still there were incidentalexpenses!--and the field-guard did not come back! Wherefore? At last, agentleman, who wore the cross of the Legion of Honour, set them free, and they went away, after giving their Christian names, surnames, andtheir domicile, with an undertaking on their part to be more circumspectin future. 

Besides a passport, they were in need of many things, and beforeundertaking fresh explorations they consulted the _GeologicalTraveller's Guide_, by Boné. It was necessary to have, in the firstplace, a good soldier's knapsack, then a surveyor's chain, a file, apair of nippers, a compass, and three hammers, passed into a belt, whichis hidden under the frock-coat, and "thus preserves you from thatoriginal appearance which one ought to avoid on a journey. " As for thestick, Pécuchet freely adopted the tourist's stick, six feet high, witha long iron point. Bouvard preferred the walking-stick umbrella, ormany-branched umbrella, the knob of which is removed in order to claspon the silk, which is kept separately in a little bag. They did notforget strong shoes with gaiters, "two pairs of braces" each "on accountof perspiration, " and, although one cannot present himself everywherein a cap, they shrank from the expense of "one of those folding hats, which bear the name of 'Gibus, ' their inventor. "

The same work gives precepts for conduct: "To know the language of thepart of the country you visit": they knew it. "To preserve a modestdeportment": this was their custom. "Not to have too much money aboutyou": nothing simpler. Finally, in order to spare yourselfembarrassments of all descriptions, it is a good thing to adopt the"description of engineer. "

"Well, we will adopt it. "

Thus prepared, they began their excursions; were sometimes eight daysaway, and passed their lives in the open air. 

Sometimes they saw, on the banks of the Orne, in a rent, pieces of rockraising their slanting surfaces between some poplar trees and heather;or else they were grieved by meeting, for the entire length of the road, nothing but layers of clay. In the presence of a landscape they admiredneither the series of perspectives nor the depth of the backgrounds, northe undulations of the green surfaces; but that which was not visible tothem, the underpart, the earth: and for them every hill was only a freshproof of the Deluge. 

To the Deluge mania succeeded that of erratic blocks. The big stonesalone in the fields must come from vanished glaciers, and they searchedfor moraines and faluns. 

They were several times taken for pedlars on account of their equipage;and when they had answered that they were "engineers, " a dread seizedthem--the usurpation of such a title might entail unpleasantconsequences. 

At the end of each day they panted beneath the weight of theirspecimens; but they dauntlessly carried them off home with them. Theywere deposited on the doorsteps, on the stairs, in the bedrooms, in thedining-room, and in the kitchen; and Germaine used to make a hubbubabout the quantity of dust. It was no slight task, before pasting on thelabels, to know the names of the rocks; the variety of colours and ofgrain made them confuse argil and marl, granite and gneiss, quartz andlimestone. 

And the nomenclature plagued them. Why Devonian, Cambrian, Jurassic--asif the portions of the earth designated by these names were not in otherplaces as well as in Devonshire, near Cambridge, and in the Jura? It wasimpossible to know where you are there. That which is a system for oneis for another a stratum, for a third a mere layer. The plates of thelayers get intermingled and entangled in one another; but Omaliusd'Halloy warns you not to believe in geological divisions. 

This statement was a relief to them; and when they had seen corallimestones in the plain of Caen, phillades at Balleroy, kaolin at St. Blaise, and oolite everywhere, and searched for coal at Cartigny and formercury at Chapelle-en-Juger, near St. Lô, they decided on a longerexcursion: a journey to Havre, to study the fire-resisting quartz andthe clay of Kimmeridge. 

As soon as they had stepped out of the packet-boat they asked what roadled under the lighthouses. 

Landslips blocked up the way; it was dangerous to venture along it. 

A man who let out vehicles accosted them, and offered them drives aroundthe neighbourhood--Ingouville, Octeville, Fécamp, Lillebonne, "Rome, ifit was necessary. "

His charges were preposterous, but the name of Falaise had struck them. By turning off the main road a little, they could see Étretat, and theytook the coach that started from Fécamp to go to the farthest pointfirst. 

In the vehicle Bouvard and Pécuchet had a conversation with threepeasants, two old women, and a seminarist, and did not hesitate to stylethemselves engineers. 

They stopped in front of the bay. They gained the cliff, and fiveminutes after, rubbed up against it to avoid a big pool of water whichwas advancing like a gulf stream in the middle of the sea-shore. Thenthey saw an archway which opened above a deep grotto; it was sonorousand very bright, like a church, with descending columns and a carpet ofsea-wrack all along its stone flooring. 

This work of nature astonished them, and as they went on their waycollecting shells, they started considerations as to the origin of theworld. 

Bouvard inclined towards Neptunism; Pécuchet, on the contrary, was aPlutonist. 

"The central fire had broken the crust of the globe, heaved up themasses of earth, and made fissures. It is, as it were, an interior sea, which has its flow and ebb, its tempests; a thin film separates us fromit. We could not sleep if we thought of all that is under our heels. However, the central fire diminishes, and the sun grows more feeble, somuch so that one day the earth will perish of refrigeration. It willbecome sterile; all the wood and all the coal will be converted intocarbonic acid, and no life can subsist there. "

"We haven't come to that yet, " said Bouvard. 

"Let us expect it, " returned Pécuchet. 

No matter, this end of the world, far away as it might be, made themgloomy; and, side by side, they walked in silence over the shingles. 

The cliff, perpendicular, a mass of white, striped with black here andthere by lines of flint, stretched towards the horizon like the curve ofa rampart five leagues wide. An east wind, bitter and cold, was blowing;the sky was grey; the sea greenish and, as it were, swollen. From thehighest points of rocks birds took wing, wheeled round, and speedilyre-entered their hiding places. Sometimes a stone, getting loosened, would rebound from one place to another before reaching them. 

Pécuchet continued his reflections aloud:

"Unless the earth should be destroyed by a cataclysm! We do not know thelength of our period. The central fire has only to overflow. "

"However, it is diminishing. "

"That does not prevent its explosions from having produced the JuliaIsland, Monte Nuovo, and many others. "

Bouvard remembered having read these details in Bertrand. 

"But such catastrophes do not happen in Europe. "

"A thousand pardons! Witness that of Lisbon. As for our own countries, the coal-mines and the firestone useful for war are numerous, and mayvery well, when decomposing, form the mouths of volcanoes. Moreover, the volcanoes always burst near the sea. "

Bouvard cast his eyes over the waves, and fancied he could distinguishin the distance a volume of smoke ascending to the sky. 

"Since the Julia Island, " returned Pécuchet, "has disappeared, thefragments of the earth formed by the same cause will perhaps have thesame fate. An islet in the Archipelago is as important as Normandy andeven as Europe. "

Bouvard imagined Europe swallowed up in an abyss. 

"Admit, " said Pécuchet, "that an earthquake takes place under theBritish Channel: the waters rush into the Atlantic; the coasts of Franceand England, tottering on their bases, bend forward and reunite--andthere you are! The entire space between is wiped out. "

Instead of answering, Bouvard began walking so quickly that he was soona hundred paces away from Pécuchet. Being alone, the idea of a cataclysmdisturbed him. He had eaten nothing since morning; his temples werethrobbing. All at once the soil appeared to him to be shaking, and thecliff over his head to be bending forward at its summit. At that momenta shower of gravel rolled down from the top of it. Pécuchet observed himscampering off wildly, understood his fright, and cried from a distance:

"Stop! stop! The period is not completed!"

And in order to overtake him he made enormous bounds with the aid of histourist's stick, all the while shouting out:

"The period is not completed! The period is not completed!"

Bouvard, in a mad state, kept running without stopping. Themany-branched umbrella fell down, the skirts of his coat were flying, the knapsack was tossing on his back. He was like a tortoise with wingsabout to gallop amongst the rocks. One bigger than the rest concealedhim from view. 

Pécuchet reached the spot out of breath, saw nobody, then returned inorder to gain the fields through a defile, which Bouvard, no doubt, hadtaken. 

This narrow ascent was cut by four great steps in the cliff, as lofty asthe heights of two men, and glittering like polished alabaster. 

At an elevation of fifty feet Pécuchet wished to descend; but as the seawas dashing against him in front, he set about clambering up further. Atthe second turning, when he beheld the empty space, terror froze him. Ashe approached the third, his legs were becoming weak. Volumes of airvibrated around him, a cramp gripped his epigastrium; he sat down on theground, with eyes closed, no longer having consciousness of aught savethe beatings of his own heart, which were suffocating him; then he flunghis tourist's stick on the ground, and on his hands and knees resumedhis ascent. But the three hammers attached to his belt began to pressagainst his stomach; the stones with which he had crammed his pocketsknocked against his sides; the peak of his cap blinded him; the windincreased in violence. At length he reached the upper ground, and therefound Bouvard, who had ascended higher through a less difficult defile. A cart picked them up. They forgot all about Étretat. 

The next evening, at Havre, while waiting for the packet-boat, they sawat the tail-end of a newspaper, a short scientific essay headed, "Onthe Teaching of Geology. " This article, full of facts, explained thesubject as it was understood at the period. 

 "There has never been a complete cataclysm of the globe, but the same space has not always the same duration, and is exhausted more quickly in one place than in another. Lands of the same age contain different fossils, just as depositaries very far distant from each other enclose similar ones. The ferns of former times are identical with the ferns of to-day. Many contemporary zoophytes are found again in the most ancient layers. To sum up, actual modifications explain former convulsions. The same causes are always in operation; Nature does not proceed by leaps; and the periods, Brogniart asserts, are, after all, only abstractions. "

Cuvier's work up to this time had appeared to them surrounded with theglory of an aureola at the summit of an incontestable science. It wassapped. Creation had no longer the same discipline, and their respectfor this great man diminished. 

From biographies and extracts they learned something of the doctrines ofLamarck and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. 

All that was contrary to accepted ideas, the authority of the Church. 

Bouvard experienced relief as if from a broken yoke. "I should like tosee now what answer Citizen Jeufroy would make to me about the Deluge!"

They found him in his little garden, where he was awaiting the membersof the vestry, who were to meet presently with a view to the purchase ofa chasuble. 

"These gentlemen wish for----?"

"An explanation, if you please. "

And Bouvard began, "What means, in Genesis, 'The abyss which was brokenup, ' and 'The cataracts of heaven?' For an abyss does not get brokenup, and heaven has no cataracts. "

The abbé closed his eyelids, then replied that it was always necessaryto distinguish between the sense and the letter. Things which shock youat first, turn out right when they are sifted. 

"Very well, but how do you explain the rain which passed over thehighest mountains--those that are two leagues in height. Just think ofit! Two leagues!--a depth of water that makes two leagues!"

And the mayor, coming up, added:

"Bless my soul! What a bath!"

"Admit, " said Bouvard, "that Moses exaggerates like the devil. "

The curé had read Bonald, and answered:

"I am ignorant of his motives; it was, no doubt, to inspire a salutaryfear in the people of whom he was the leader. "

"Finally, this mass of water--where did it come from?"

"How do I know? The air was changed into water, just as happens everyday. "

Through the garden gate they saw M. Girbal, superintendent of taxes, making his way in, together with Captain Heurtaux, a landowner; andBeljambe, the innkeeper, appeared, assisting with his arm Langlois, thegrocer, who walked with difficulty on account of his catarrh. 

Pécuchet, without bestowing a thought on them, took up the argument:

"Excuse me, M. Jeufroy. The weight of the atmosphere, sciencedemonstrates to us, is equal to that of a mass of water which would makea covering of ten metres[8] around the globe. Consequently, if all theair that had been condensed fell down in a liquid state, it wouldaugment very little the mass of existing waters. "

The vestrymen opened their eyes wide, and listened. 

The curé lost patience. "Will you deny that shells have been found onthe mountains? What put them there, if not the Deluge? They are notaccustomed, I believe, to grow out of the ground of themselves alone, like carrots!" And this joke having made the assembly laugh, he added, pressing his lips together: "Unless this be another discovery ofscience!"

Bouvard was pleased to reply by referring to the rising of mountains, the theory of Elie de Beaumont. 

"Don't know him, " returned the abbé. 

Foureau hastened to explain: "He is from Caen. I have seen him at thePrefecture. "

"But if your Deluge, " Bouvard broke in again, "had sent shells drifting, they would be found broken on the surface, and not at depths of threehundred metres sometimes. "

The priest fell back on the truth of the Scriptures, the tradition ofthe human race, and the animals discovered in the ice in Siberia. 

"That does not prove that man existed at the time they did. "

The earth, in Pécuchet's view, was much older. "The delta of theMississippi goes back to tens of thousands of years. The actual epochis a hundred thousand, at least. The lists of Manetho----"

The Count de Faverges appeared on the scene. They were all silent at hisapproach. 

"Go on, pray. What were you talking about?"

"These gentlemen are wrangling with me, " replied the abbé. 

"About what?"

"About Holy Writ, M. Le Comte. "

Bouvard immediately pleaded that they had a right, as geologists, todiscuss religion. 

"Take care, " said the count; "you know the phrase, my dear sir, 'Alittle science takes us away from it, a great deal leads us back toit'?" And in a tone at the same time haughty and paternal: "Believe me, you will come back to it! you will come back to it!"

"Perhaps so. But what were we to think of a book in which it ispretended that the light was created before the sun? as if the sun werenot the sole cause of light!"

"You forget the light which we call boreal, " said the ecclesiastic. 

Bouvard, without answering this point, strongly denied that light couldbe on one side and darkness on the other, that evening and morning couldhave existed when there were no stars, or that the animals made theirappearance suddenly, instead of being formed by crystallisation. 

As the walks were too narrow, while gesticulating, they trod on theflower-borders. Langlois took a fit of coughing. 

The captain exclaimed: "You are revolutionaries!"

Girbal: "Peace! peace!"

The priest: "What materialism!"

Foureau: "Let us rather occupy ourselves with our chasuble!"

"No! let me speak!" And Bouvard, growing more heated, went on to saythat man was descended from the ape!

All the vestrymen looked at each other, much amazed, and as if to assurethemselves that they were not apes. 

Bouvard went on: "By comparing the foetus of a woman, of a bitch, of abird, of a frog----"

"Enough!"

"For my part, I go farther!" cried Pécuchet. "Man is descended from thefishes!"

There was a burst of laughter. But without being disturbed:

"The _Telliamed_--an Arab book----"

"Come, gentlemen, let us hold our meeting. "

And they entered the sacristy. 

The two comrades had not given the Abbé Jeufroy such a fall as theyexpected; therefore, Pécuchet found in him "the stamp of Jesuitism. " His"boreal light, " however, caused them uneasiness. They searched for it inOrbigny's manual. 

"This is a hypothesis to explain why the vegetable fossils of Baffin'sBay resemble the Equatorial plants. We suppose, in place of the sun, agreat luminous source of heat which has now disappeared, and of whichthe Aurora Borealis is but perhaps a vestige. "

Then a doubt came to them as to what proceeds from man, and, in theirperplexity, they thought of Vaucorbeil. 

He had not followed up his threats. As of yore, he passed every morningbefore their grating, striking all the bars with his walking-stick oneafter the other. 

Bouvard watched him, and, having stopped him, said he wanted to submitto him a curious point in anthropology. 

"Do you believe that the human race is descended from fishes?"

"What nonsense!"

"From apes rather--isn't that so?"

"Directly, that is impossible!"

On whom could they depend? For, in fact, the doctor was not a Catholic!

They continued their studies, but without enthusiasm, being weary ofeocene and miocene, of Mount Jurillo, of the Julia Island, of themammoths of Siberia and of the fossils, invariably compared in all theauthors to "medals which are authentic testimonies, " so much so that oneday Bouvard threw his knapsack on the ground, declaring that he wouldnot go any farther. 

"Geology is too defective. Some parts of Europe are hardly known. As forthe rest, together with the foundation of the oceans, we shall always bein a state of ignorance on the subject. "

Finally, Pécuchet having pronounced the word "mineral kingdom":

"I don't believe in it, this mineral kingdom, since organic substanceshave taken part in the formation of flint, of chalk, and perhaps ofgold. Hasn't the diamond been charcoal; coal a collection of vegetables?and by heating it to I know not how many degrees, we get the sawdust ofwood, so that everything passes, everything goes to ruin, and everythingis transformed. Creation is carried out in an undulating and fugitivefashion. Much better to occupy ourselves with something else. "

He stretched himself on his back and went to sleep, while Pécuchet, withhis head down and one knee between his hands, gave himself up to his ownreflections. 

A border of moss stood on the edge of a hollow path overhung by ashtrees, whose slender tops quivered; angelica, mint, and lavender exhaledwarm, pungent odours. The atmosphere was drowsy, and Pécuchet, in a kindof stupor, dreamed of the innumerable existences scattered aroundhim--of the insects that buzzed, the springs hidden beneath the grass, the sap of plants, the birds in their nests, the wind, the clouds--ofall Nature, without seeking to unveil her mysteries, enchanted by herpower, lost in her grandeur. 

"I'm thirsty!" said Bouvard, waking up. 

"So am I. I should be glad to drink something. "

"That's easy, " answered a man who was passing by in his shirt-sleeveswith a plank on his shoulder. And they recognised that vagabond to whom, on a former occasion, Bouvard had given a glass of wine. He seemed tenyears younger, wore his hair foppishly curled, his moustache well waxed, and twisted his figure about in quite a Parisian fashion. After walkingabout a hundred paces, he opened the gateway of a farmyard, threw downhis plank against the wall, and led them into a large kitchen. 

"Mélie! are you there, Mélie?"

A young girl appeared. At a word from him she drew some liquor and cameback to the table to serve the gentlemen. 

Her wheat-coloured head-bands fell over a cap of grey linen. Her worndress of poor material fell down her entire body without a crease, and, with her straight nose and blue eyes, she had about her somethingdainty, rustic, and ingenuous. 

"She's nice, eh?" said the joiner, while she was bringing them theglasses. "You might take her for a lady dressed up as a peasant-girl, and yet able to do rough work! Poor little heart, come! When I'm richI'll marry you!"

"You are always talking nonsense, _Monsieur_ Gorju, " she replied, in asoft voice, with a slightly drawling accent. 

A stable boy came in to get some oats out of an old chest, and let thelid fall down so awkwardly that it made splinters of wood fly upwards. 

Gorju declaimed against the clumsiness of all "these country fellows, "then, on his knees in front of the article of furniture, he tried to putthe piece in its place. Pécuchet, while offering to assist him, tracedbeneath the dust faces of notable characters. 

It was a chest of the Renaissance period, with a twisted fringe below, vine branches in the corner, and little columns dividing its front intofive portions. In the centre might be seen Venus-Anadyomene standing ona shell, then Hercules and Omphale, Samson and Delilah, Circe and herswine, the daughters of Lot making their father drunk; and all this in astate of complete decay, the chest being worm-eaten, and even its rightpanel wanting. 

Gorju took a candle, in order to give Pécuchet a better view of the leftone, which exhibited Adam and Eve under a tree in Paradise in anaffectionate attitude. 

Bouvard equally admired the chest. 

"If you keep it they'll give it to you cheap. "

They hesitated, thinking of the necessary repairs. 

Gorju might do them, cabinet-making being a branch of his trade. 

"Let us go. Come on. "

And he dragged Pécuchet towards the fruit-garden, where MadameCastillon, the mistress, was spreading linen. 

Mélie, when she had washed her hands, took from where it lay beside thewindow her lace-frame, sat down in the broad daylight and worked. 

The lintel of the door enclosed her like a picture-frame. The bobbinsdisentangled themselves under her fingers with a sound like the clickingof castanets. Her profile remained bent. 

Bouvard asked her questions as to her family, the part of the countryshe came from, and the wages she got. 

She was from Ouistreham, had no relations alive, and earned seventeenshillings a month; in short, she pleased him so much that he wished totake her into his service to assist old Germaine. 

Pécuchet reappeared with the mistress of the farm-house, and, while theywent on with their bargaining, Bouvard asked Gorju in a very low tonewhether the girl would consent to become their servant. 

"Lord, yes. "

"However, " said Bouvard, "I must consult my friend. "

The bargain had just been concluded, the price fixed for the chest beingthirty-five francs. They were to come to an understanding about therepairs. 

They had scarcely got out into the yard when Bouvard spoke of hisintentions with regard to Mélie. 

Pécuchet stopped (in order the better to reflect), opened his snuff-box, took a pinch, and, wiping the snuff off his nose:

"Indeed, it is a good idea. Good heavens! yes! why not? Besides, you arethe master. "

Ten minutes afterwards, Gorju showed himself on the top of a ditch, andquestioning them: "When do you want me to bring you the chest?"

"To-morrow. "

"And about the other question, have you both made up your minds?"

"It's all right, " replied Pécuchet. 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV. 

RESEARCHES IN ARCHÆOLOGY. 

Six months later they had become archæologists, and their house was likea museum. 

In the vestibule stood an old wooden beam. The staircase was encumberedwith the geological specimens, and an enormous chain was stretched onthe ground all along the corridor. They had taken off its hinges thedoor between the two rooms in which they did not sleep, and hadcondemned the outer door of the second in order to convert both into asingle apartment. 

As soon as you crossed the threshold, you came in contact with a stonetrough (a Gallo-Roman sarcophagus); the ironwork next attracted yourattention. Fixed to the opposite wall, a warming-pan looked down on twoandirons and a hearthplate representing a monk caressing a shepherdess. On the boards all around, you saw torches, locks, bolts, and nuts ofscrews. The floor was rendered invisible beneath fragments of red tiles. A table in the centre exhibited curiosities of the rarest description:the shell of a Cauchoise cap, two argil urns, medals, and a phial ofopaline glass. An upholstered armchair had at its back a triangle workedwith guipure. A piece of a coat of mail adorned the partition to theright, and on the other side sharp spikes sustained in a horizontalposition a unique specimen of a halberd. 

The second room, into which two steps led down, contained the old bookswhich they had brought with them from Paris, and those which, on theirarrival, they had found in a press. The leaves of the folding-doors hadbeen removed hither. They called it the library. 

The back of the door was entirely covered by the genealogical tree ofthe Croixmare family. In the panelling on the return side, a pastel of alady in the dress of the period of Louis XV. Made a companion picture tothe portrait of Père Bouvard. The casing of the glass was decorated witha sombrero of black felt, and a monstrous galoche filled with leaves, the remains of a nest. 

Two cocoanuts (which had belonged to Pécuchet since his younger days)flanked on the chimney-piece an earthenware cask on which a peasant satastride. Close by, in a straw basket, was a little coin brought up by aduck. 

In front of the bookcase stood a shell chest of drawers trimmed withplush. The cover of it supported a cat with a mouse in its mouth--apetrifaction from St. Allyre; a work-box, also of shell work, and onthis box a decanter of brandy contained a Bon Chrétien pear. 

But the finest thing was a statue of St. Peter in the embrasure of thewindow. His right hand, covered with a glove of apple-green colour, waspressing the key of Paradise. His chasuble, ornamented withfleurs-de-luce, was azure blue, and his tiara very yellow, pointed likea pagoda. He had flabby cheeks, big round eyes, a gaping mouth, and acrooked nose shaped like a trumpet. Above him hung a canopy made of anold carpet in which you could distinguish two Cupids in a circle ofroses, and at his feet, like a pillar, rose a butter-pot bearing thesewords in white letters on a chocolate ground: "Executed in the presenceof H. R. H. The Duke of Angoulême at Noron, 3rd of October, 1847. "

Pécuchet, from his bed, saw all these things in a row, and sometimes hewent as far as Bouvard's room to lengthen the perspective. 

One spot remained empty, exactly opposite to the coat of arms, thatintended for the Renaissance chest. It was not finished; Gorju was stillworking at it, jointing the panels in the bakehouse, squaring them orundoing them. 

At eleven o'clock he took his breakfast, chatted after that with Mélie, and often did not make his appearance again for the rest of the day. 

In order to have pieces of furniture in good style, Bouvard and Pécuchetwent scouring the country. What they brought back was not suitable; butthey had come across a heap of curious things. Their first passion was ataste for articles of _virtù_; then came the love of the Middle Ages. 

To begin with, they visited cathedrals; and the lofty naves mirroringthemselves in the holy-water fonts, the glass ornaments dazzling ashangings of precious stones, the tombs in the recesses of the chapels, the uncertain light of crypts--everything, even to the coolness of thewalls, thrilled them with a shudder of joy, a religious emotion. 

They were soon able to distinguish the epochs, and, disdainful ofsacristans, they would say: "Ha! a Romanesque apsis!" "That's of thetwelfth century!" "Here we are falling back again into the flamboyant!"

They strove to interpret the sculptured symbols on the capitals, such asthe two griffins of Marigny pecking at a tree in blossom; Pécuchet reada satire in the singers with grotesque jaws which terminate themouldings at Feugerolles; and as for the exuberance of the man thatcovers one of the mullions at Hérouville, that was a proof, according toBouvard, of our ancestors' love of broad jokes. 

They ended by not tolerating the least symptom of decadence. All wasdecadence, and they deplored vandalism, and thundered against badigeon. 

But the style of a monument does not always agree with its supposeddate. The semicircular arch of the thirteenth century still holds swayin Provence. The ogive is, perhaps, very ancient; and authors dispute asto the anteriority of the Romanesque to the Gothic. This want ofcertainty disappointed them. 

After the churches they studied fortresses--those of Domfront andFalaise. They admired under the gate the grooves of the portcullis, and, having reached the top, they first saw all the country around them, thenthe roofs of the houses in the town, the streets intersecting oneanother, the carts on the square, the women at the washhouse. The walldescended perpendicularly as far as the palisade; and they grew pale asthey thought that men had mounted there, hanging to ladders. They wouldhave ventured into the subterranean passages but that Bouvard found anobstacle in his stomach and Pécuchet in his horror of vipers. 

They desired to make the acquaintance of the old manor-houses--Curcy, Bully, Fontenay, Lemarmion, Argonge. Sometimes a Carlovingian towerwould show itself at the corner of some farm-buildings behind a heap ofmanure. The kitchen, garnished with stone benches, made them dream offeudal junketings. Others had a forbiddingly fierce aspect with theirthree enceintes still visible, their loopholes under the staircase, andtheir high turrets with pointed sides. Then they came to an apartment inwhich a window of the Valois period, chased so as to resemble ivory, letin the sun, which heated the grains of colza that strewed the floor. Abbeys were used as barns. The inscriptions on tombstones were effaced. In the midst of fields a gable-end remained standing, clad from top tobottom in ivy which trembled in the wind. 

A number of things excited in their breasts a longing to possess them--atin pot, a paste buckle, printed calicoes with large flowerings. Theshortness of money restrained them. 

By a happy chance, they unearthed at Balleroy in a tinman's house aGothic church window, and it was big enough to cover, near the armchair, the right side of the casement up to the second pane. The steeple ofChavignolles displayed itself in the distance, producing a magnificenteffect. With the lower part of a cupboard Gorju manufactured a prie-dieuto put under the Gothic window, for he humoured their hobby. Sopronounced was it that they regretted monuments about which nothing atall is known--such as the villa residence of the bishops of Séez. 

"Bayeux, " says M. De Caumont, "must have possessed a theatre. " Theysearched for the site of it without success. 

The village of Montrecy contained a meadow celebrated for the number ofmedals which chanced formerly to have been found there. They calculatedon making a fine harvest in this place. The caretaker refused to admitthem. 

They were not more fortunate as to the connection which existed betweena cistern at Falaise and the faubourg of Caen. Ducks which had been putin there reappeared at Vaucelles, quacking, "Can, can, can"--whence isderived the name of the town!

No step, no sacrifice, was too great for them. 

At the inn of Mesnil-Villement, in 1816, M. Galeron got a breakfast forthe sum of four sous. They took the same meal there, and ascertainedwith surprise that things were altered!

Who was the founder of the abbey of St. Anne? Is there any relationshipbetween Marin Onfroy, who, in the twelfth century, imported a new kindof potato, and Onfroy, governor of Hastings at the period of theConquest? How were they to procure _L'Astucieuse Pythonisse_, a comedyin verse by one Dutrezor, produced at Bayeux, and just now exceedinglyrare? Under Louis XIV. , Hérambert Dupaty, or Dupastis Hérambert, composed a work which has never appeared, full of anecdotes aboutArgentan: the question was how to recover these anecdotes. What havebecome of the autograph memoirs of Madame Dubois de la Pierre, consultedfor the unpublished history of L'Aigle by Louis Dasprès, curate of St. Martin? So many problems, so many curious points, to clear up. 

But a slight mark often puts one on the track of an invaluablediscovery. 

Accordingly, they put on their blouses, in order not to put people ontheir guard, and, in the guise of hawkers, they presented themselves athouses, where they expressed a desire to buy up old papers. Theyobtained heaps of them. These included school copybooks, invoices, newspapers that were out of date--nothing of any value. 

At last Bouvard and Pécuchet addressed themselves to Larsoneur. 

He was absorbed in Celtic studies, and while summarily replying to theirquestions put others to them. 

Had they observed in their rounds any traces of dog-worship, such as areseen at Montargis, or any special circumstances with regard to the fireson St. John's night, marriages, popular sayings, etc. ? He even begged ofthem to collect for him some of those flint axes, then called _celtæ_, which the Druids used in their criminal holocausts. 

They procured a dozen of them through Gorju, sent him the smallest ofthem, and with the others enriched the museum. There they walked withdelight, swept the place themselves, and talked about it to all theiracquaintances. 

One afternoon Madame Bordin and M. Marescot came to see it. 

Bouvard welcomed them, and began the demonstration in the porch. 

The beam was nothing less than the old gibbet of Falaise, according tothe joiner who had sold it, and who had got this information from hisgrand-father. 

The big chain in the corridor came from the subterranean cells of thekeep of Torteval. In the notary's opinion it resembled the boundarychains in front of the entrance-courts of manor-houses. Bouvard wasconvinced that it had been used in former times to bind the captives. Heopened the door of the first chamber. 

"What are all these tiles for?" exclaimed Madame Bordin. 

"To heat the stoves. But let us be a little regular, if you please. Thisis a tomb discovered in an inn where they made use of it as ahorse-trough. "

After this, Bouvard took up the two urns filled with a substance whichconsisted of human dust, and he drew the phials up to his eyes, for thepurpose of showing the way the Romans used to shed tears in it. 

"But one sees only dismal things at your house!"

Indeed it was a rather grave subject for a lady. So he next drew out ofa case several copper coins, together with a silver denarius. 

Madame Bordin asked the notary what sum this would be worth at thepresent day. 

The coat of mail which he was examining slipped out of his fingers; someof the links snapped. 

Bouvard stifled his annoyance. He had even the politeness to unfastenthe halberd, and, bending forward, raising his arms and stamping withhis heels, he made a show of hamstringing a horse, stabbing as if with abayonet and overpowering an enemy. 

The widow inwardly voted him a rough person. 

She went into raptures over the shell chest of drawers. 

The cat of St. Allyre much astonished her, the pear in the decanter notquite so much; then, when she came to the chimney-piece: "Ha! here's ahat that would need mending!"

Three holes, marks of bullets, pierced its brims. 

It was the head-piece of a robber chief under the Directory, David de laBazoque, caught in the act of treason, and immediately put to death. 

"So much the better! They did right, " said Madame Bordin. 

Marescot smiled disdainfully as he gazed at the different objects. Hedid not understand this galoche having been the sign of a hosier, northe purport of the earthenware cask--a common cider-keg--and, to becandid, the St. Peter was lamentable with his drunkard's physiognomy. 

Madame Bordin made this observation:

"All the same, it must have cost you a good deal?"

"Oh! not too much, not too much. "

A slater had given it to him for fifteen francs. 

After this, she found fault on the score of propriety with the low dressof the lady in the powdered wig. 

"Where is the harm, " replied Bouvard, "when one possesses somethingbeautiful?" And he added in a lower tone: "Just as you are yourself, I'msure. "

(The notary turned his back on them, and studied the branches of theCroixmare family. )

She made no response but began to play with her long gold chain. Herbosom swelled out the black taffeta of her corsage, and, with hereyelashes slightly drawn together, she lowered her chin like aturtle-dove bridling up; then, with an ingenuous air:

"What is this lady's name?"

"It is unknown; she was one of the Regent's mistresses, you know; he whoplayed so many pranks. "

"I believe you; the memoirs of the time----"

And the notary, without giving her time to finish the sentence, deploredthis example of a prince carried away by his passions. 

"But you are all like that!"

The two gentlemen protested, and then followed a dialogue on women andon love. Marescot declared that there were many happy unions; sometimeseven, without suspecting it, we have close beside us what we require forour happiness. 

The allusion was direct. The widow's cheeks flushed scarlet; but, recovering her composure almost the next moment:

"We are past the age for folly, are we not, M. Bouvard?"

"Ha! ha! For my part, I don't admit that. "

And he offered his arm to lead her towards the adjoining room. 

"Be careful about the steps. All right? Now observe the church window. "

They traced on its surface a scarlet cloak and two angels' wings. Allthe rest was lost under the leads which held in equilibrium the numerousbreakages in the glass. The day was declining; the shadows werelengthening; Madame Bordin had become grave. 

Bouvard withdrew, and presently reappeared muffled up in a woollenwrapper, then knelt down at the prie-dieu with his elbows out, his facein his hands, the light of the sun falling on his bald patch; and he wasconscious of this effect, for he said:

"Don't I look like a monk of the Middle Ages?"

Then he raised his forehead on one side, with swimming eyes, and tryingto give a mystical expression to his face. The solemn voice of Pécuchetwas heard in the corridor:

"Don't be afraid. It is I. " And he entered, his head covered with ahelmet--an iron pot with pointed ear-pieces. 

Bouvard did not quit the prie-dieu. The two others remained standing. Aminute slipped away in glances of amazement. 

Madame Bordin appeared rather cold to Pécuchet. However he wished toknow whether everything had been shown to them. 

"It seems to me so. " And pointing towards the wall: "Ah! pray excuse us;there is an object which we may restore in a moment. "

The widow and Marescot thereupon took their leave. The two friendsconceived the idea of counterfeiting a competition. They set out on arace after each other; one giving the other the start. Pécuchet won thehelmet. 

Bouvard congratulated him upon it, and received praises from his friendon the subject of the wrapper. 

Mélie arranged it with cords, in the fashion of a gown. They took turnsabout in receiving visits. 

They had visits from Girbal, Foureau, and Captain Heurtaux, and thenfrom inferior persons--Langlois, Beljambe, their husbandmen, and eventhe servant-girls of their neighbours; and, on each occasion, they wentover the same explanations, showed the place where the chest would be, affected a tone of modesty, and claimed indulgence for the obstruction. 

Pécuchet on these days wore the Zouave's cap which he had formerly inParis, considering it more in harmony with an artistic environment. Ata particular moment, he would put the helmet on his head, and inclineit over the back of his neck, in order to have his face free. Bouvarddid not forget the movement with the halberd; finally, with one glance, they would ask each other whether the visitor was worthy of having "themonk of the Middle Ages" represented. 

What a thrill they felt when M. De Faverges' carriage drew up before thegarden gate! He had only a word to say to them. This was the occasion ofhis visit:

Hurel, his man of business, had informed him that, while searchingeverywhere for documents, they had bought up old papers at the farm ofAubrye. 

That was perfectly true. 

Had they not discovered some letters of Baron de Gonneval, a formeraide-de-camp of the Duke of Angoulême, who had stayed at Aubrye? Hewished to have this correspondence for family reasons. 

They had not got it in the house, but they had in their possessionsomething that would interest him if he would be good enough to followthem into their library. 

Never before had such well-polished boots creaked in the corridor. Theyknocked against the sarcophagus. He even went near smashing severaltiles, moved an armchair about, descended two steps; and, when theyreached the second chamber, they showed him under the canopy, in frontof the St. Peter, the butter-pot made at Noron. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet thought that the date might some time be of use. Through politeness, the nobleman inspected their museum. He keptrepeating, "Charming! very nice!" all the time giving his mouth littletaps with the handle of his switch; and said that, for his part, hethanked them for having rescued those remains of the Middle Ages, anepoch of religious faith and chivalrous devotion. He loved progress, andwould have given himself up like them to these interesting studies, butthat politics, the General Council, agriculture, a veritable whirlwind, drove him away from them. 

"After you, however, one would have merely gleanings, for soon you willhave captured all the curiosities of the department. "

"Without vanity, we think so, " said Pécuchet. 

However, one might still discover some at Chavignolles; for example, there was, close to the cemetery wall in the lane, a holy-water basinburied under the grass from time immemorial. 

They were pleased with the information, then exchanged a significantglance--"Is it worth the trouble?"--but already the Count was openingthe door. 

Mélie, who was behind it, fled abruptly. 

As he passed out of the house into the grounds, he observed Gorjusmoking his pipe with folded arms. 

"You employ this fellow? I would not put much confidence in him in atime of disturbance. "

And M. De Faverges sprang lightly into his tilbury. 

Why did their servant-maid seem to be afraid of him?

They questioned her, and she told them she had been employed on hisfarm. She was that little girl who poured out drink for the harvesterswhen they came there two years before. They had taken her on as a helpat the château, and dismissed her in consequence of false reports. 

As for Gorju, how could they find fault with him? He was very handy, andshowed the utmost consideration for them. 

Next day, at dawn, they repaired to the cemetery. Bouvard felt with hiswalking-stick at the spot indicated. They heard the sound of a hardsubstance. They pulled up some nettles, and discovered a stone basin, abaptismal font, out of which plants were sprouting. It is not usual, however, to bury baptismal fonts outside churches. 

Pécuchet made a sketch of it; Bouvard wrote out a description of it; andthey sent both to Larsoneur. His reply came immediately. 

"Victory, my dear associates! Unquestionably, it is a druidical bowl!"

However, let them be careful about the matter. The axe was doubtful; andas much for his sake as for their own, he pointed out a series of worksto be consulted. 

In a postscript, Larsoneur confessed his longing to have a look at thisbowl, which opportunity would be afforded him in a few days, when hewould be starting on a trip from Brittany. 

Then Bouvard and Pécuchet plunged into Celtic archæology. 

According to this science, the ancient Gauls, our ancestors, adored Kirkand Kron, Taranis Esus, Nelalemnia, Heaven and Earth, the Wind, theWaters, and, above all, the great Teutates, who is the Saturn of thePagans; for Saturn, when he reigned in Phoenicia, wedded a nymph namedAnobret, by whom he had a child called Jeüd. And Anobret presents thesame traits as Sara; Jeüd was sacrificed (or near being so), like Isaac;therefore, Saturn is Abraham; whence the conclusion must be drawn thatthe religion of the Gauls had the same principles as that of the Jews. 

Their society was very well organised. The first class of personsamongst them included the people, the nobility, and the king; thesecond, the jurisconsults; and in the third, the highest, were ranged, according to Taillepied, "the various kinds of philosophers, " that is tosay, the Druids or Saronides, themselves divided into Eubages, Bards, and Vates. 

One section of them prophesied, another sang, while a third gaveinstruction in botany, medicine, history, and literature, in short, allthe arts of their time. 

Pythagoras and Plato were their pupils. They taught metaphysics to theGreeks, sorcery to the Persians, aruspicy to the Etruscans, and to theRomans the plating of copper and the traffic in hams. 

But of this people, who ruled the ancient world, there remain onlystones either isolated or in groups of three, or placed together so asto resemble a rude chamber, or forming enclosures. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet, filled with enthusiasm, studied in succession thestone on the Post-farm at Ussy, the Coupled Stone at Quest, the StandingStone near L'Aigle, and others besides. 

All these blocks, of equal insignificance, speedily bored them; and oneday, when they had just seen the menhir at Passais, they were about toreturn from it when their guide led them into a beech wood, which wasblocked up with masses of granite, like pedestals or monstroustortoises. The most remarkable of them is hollowed like a basin. One ofits sides rises, and at the further end two channels run down to theground; this must have been for the flowing of blood--impossible todoubt it! Chance does not make these things. 

The roots of the trees were intertwined with these rugged pedestals. Inthe distance rose columns of fog like huge phantoms. It was easy toimagine under the leaves the priests in golden tiaras and white robes, and their human victims with arms bound behind their backs, and at theside of the bowl the Druidess watching the red stream, whilst around herthe multitude yelled, to the accompaniment of cymbals and of trumpetsmade from the horns of the wild bull. 

Immediately they decided on their plan. And one night, by the light ofthe moon, they took the road to the cemetery, stealing in like thieves, in the shadows of the houses. The shutters were fastened, and quietreigned around every dwelling-place; not a dog barked. 

Gorju accompanied them. They set to work. All that could be heard wasthe noise of stones knocking against the spade as it dug through thesoil. 

The vicinity of the dead was disagreeable to them. The church clockstruck with a rattling sound, and the rosework on its tympanum lookedlike an eye espying a sacrilege. At last they carried off the bowl. 

They came next morning to the cemetery to see the traces of theoperation. 

The abbé, who was taking the air at his door, begged of them to do himthe honour of a visit, and, having introduced them into hisbreakfast-parlour, he gazed at them in a singular fashion. 

In the middle of the sideboard, between the plates, was a soup-tureendecorated with yellow bouquets. 

Pécuchet praised it, at a loss for something to say. 

"It is old Rouen, " returned the curé; "an heirloom. Amateurs set a highvalue on it--M. Marescot especially. " As for him, thank God, he had nolove of curiosities; and, as they appeared not to understand, hedeclared that he had seen them himself stealing the baptismal font. 

The two archæologists were quite abashed. The article in question wasnot in actual use. 

No matter! they should give it back. 

No doubt! But, at least, let them be permitted to get a painter to makea drawing of it. 

"Be it so, gentlemen. "

"Between ourselves, is it not?" said Bouvard, "under the seal ofconfession. "

The ecclesiastic, smiling, reassured them with a gesture. 

It was not he whom they feared, but rather Larsoneur. When he would bepassing through Chavignolles, he would feel a hankering after the bowl;and his chatterings might reach the ears of the Government. Out ofprudence they kept it hidden in the bakehouse, then in the arbour, inthe trunk, in a cupboard. Gorju was tired of dragging it about. 

The possession of such a rare piece of furniture bound them the closerto the Celticism of Normandy. 

Its sources were Egyptian. Séez, in the department of the Orne, issometimes written Saïs, like the city of the Delta. The Gauls swore bythe bull, an idea derived from the bull Apis. The Latin name ofBellocastes, which was that of the people of Bayeux, comes from BeliCasa, dwelling, sanctuary of Belus--Belus and Osiris, the same divinity!

"There is nothing, " says Mangou de la Londe, "opposed to the idea thatdruidical monuments existed near Bayeux. " "This country, " adds M. Roussel, "is like the country in which the Egyptians built the temple ofJupiter Ammon. "

So then there was a temple in which riches were shut up. All the Celticmonuments contain them. 

"In 1715, " relates Dom Martin, "one Sieur Heribel exhumed in thevicinity of Bayeux, several argil vases full of bones, and concluded (inaccordance with tradition and authorities which had disappeared) thatthis place, a necropolis, was the Mount Faunus in which the Golden Calfis buried. "

In the first place, where is Mount Faunus? The authors do not point itout. The natives know nothing about it. It would be necessary to devotethemselves to excavations, and with that view they forwarded a petitionto the prefect, to which they got no response. 

Perhaps Mount Faunus had disappeared, and was not a hill but a barrow?

Several of them contain skeletons that have the position of the foetusin the mother's womb. This meant that for them the tomb was, as it were, a second gestation, preparing them for another life. Therefore thebarrow symbolises the female organ, just as the raised stone is the maleorgan. 

In fact, where menhirs are found, an obscene creed has persisted. Witness what took place at Guerande, at Chichebouche, at Croissic, atLivarot. In former times the towers, the pyramids, the wax tapers, theboundaries of roads, and even the trees had a phallic meaning. Bouvardand Pécuchet collected whipple-trees of carriages, legs of armchairs, bolts of cellars, apothecaries' pestles. When people came to see themthey would ask, "What do you think that is like?" and then they wouldconfide the secret. And, if anyone uttered an exclamation, they wouldshrug their shoulders in pity. 

One evening as they were dreaming about the dogmas of the Druids, theabbé cautiously stole in. 

Immediately they showed the museum, beginning with the church window;but they longed to reach the new compartment--that of the phallus. Theecclesiastic stopped them, considering the exhibition indecent. He cameto demand back his baptismal font. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet begged for another fortnight, the time necessaryfor taking a moulding of it. 

"The sooner the better, " said the abbé. 

Then he chatted on general topics. 

Pécuchet, who had left the room a minute, on coming back slipped anapoleon into his hand. 

The priest made a backward movement. 

"Oh! for your poor!"

And, colouring, M. Jeufroy crammed the gold piece into his cassock. 

To give back the bowl, the bowl for sacrifices! Never, while they lived!They were even anxious to learn Hebrew, which is the mother-tongue ofCeltic, unless indeed the former language be derived from it! And theyhad planned a journey into Brittany, commencing with Rennes, where theyhad an appointment with Larsoneur, with a view of studying that urnmentioned in the Memorials of the Celtic Academy, which appeared to havecontained the ashes of Queen Artimesia, when the mayor enteredunceremoniously with his hat on, like the boorish individual he was. 

"All this won't do, my fine fellows! You must give it up!"

"What, pray?"

"Rogues! I know well you are concealing it!"

Someone had betrayed them. 

They replied that they had the curé's permission to keep it. 

"We'll soon see that!"

Foureau went away. An hour later he came back. 

They were obstinate. 

In the first place, this holy-water basin was not wanted, as it reallywas not a holy-water basin at all. They would prove this by a vastnumber of scientific reasons. Next, they offered to acknowledge in theirwill that it belonged to the parish. They even proposed to buy it. 

"And, besides, it is my property, " Pécuchet asseverated. 

The twenty francs accepted by M. Jeufroy furnished a proof of thecontract, and if he compelled them to go before a justice of the peace, so much the worse: he would be taking a false oath!

During these disputes he had again seen the soup-tureen many times, andin his soul had sprung up the desire, the thirst for possession of thispiece of earthenware. If the curé was willing to give it to him, hewould restore the bowl, otherwise not. 

Through weariness or fear of scandal, M. Jeufroy yielded it up. It wasplaced amongst their collection near the Cauchoise cap. The bowldecorated the church porch; and they consoled themselves for the lossof it with the reflection that the people of Chavignolles were ignorantof its value. 

But the soup-tureen inspired them with a taste for earthenware--a newsubject for study and for explorations through the country. 

It was the period when persons of good position were looking out for oldRouen dishes. The notary possessed a few of them, and derived from thefact, as it were, an artistic reputation which was prejudicial to hisprofession, but for which he made up by the serious side of hischaracter. 

When he learned that Bouvard and Pécuchet had got the soup-tureen, hecame to propose to them an exchange. 

Pécuchet would not consent to this. 

"Let us say no more about it!" and Marescot proceeded to examine theirceramic collection. 

All the specimens hung up along the wall were blue on a background ofdirty white, and some showed their horn of plenty in green or reddishtones. There were shaving-dishes, plates and saucers, objects longsought for, and brought back in the recesses of one's frock-coat closeto one's heart. 

Marescot praised them, and then talked about other kinds of faïence, theHispano-Arabian, the Dutch, the English, and the Italian, and havingdazzled them with his erudition:

"Might I see your soup-tureen again?"

He made it ring by rapping on it with his fingers, then he contemplatedthe two S's painted on the lid. 

"The mark of Rouen!" said Pécuchet. 

"Ho! ho! Rouen, properly speaking, would not have any mark. WhenMoutiers was unknown, all the French faïence came from Nevers. So withRouen to-day. Besides, they imitate it to perfection at El-boeuf. "

"It isn't possible!"

"Majolica is cleverly imitated. Your specimen is of no value; and as forme, I was about to do a downright foolish thing. "

When the notary had gone, Pécuchet sank into an armchair in a state ofnervous prostration. 

"We shouldn't have given back the bowl, " said Bouvard; "but you getexcited, and always lose your head. "

"Yes, I do lose my head"; and Pécuchet, snatching up the soup-tureen, flung it some distance away from him against the sarcophagus. 

Bouvard, more self-possessed, picked up the broken pieces one by one;and some time afterwards this idea occurred to him: "Marescot, throughjealousy, might have been making fools of us!"

"How?"

"There's nothing to show me that the soup-tureen was not genuine!Whereas the other specimens which he pretended to admire are perhapscounterfeit. "

And so the day closed with uncertainties and regrets. 

This was no reason for abandoning their tour into Brittany. 

They even purposed to take Gorju along with them to assist them in theirexcavations. 

For some time past, he had slept at the house, in order to finish themore quickly the repairing of the chest. 

The prospect of a change of place annoyed him, and when they talkedabout menhirs and barrows which they calculated on seeing: "I knowbetter ones, " said he to them; "in Algeria, in the South, near thesources of Bou-Mursoug, you meet quantities of them. " He then gave adescription of a tomb which chanced to be open right in front of him, and which contained a skeleton squatting like an ape with its two armsaround its legs. 

Larsoneur, when they informed him of the circumstance, would not believea word of it. 

Bouvard sifted the matter, and started the question again. 

How does it happen that the monuments of the Gauls are shapeless, whereas these same Gauls were civilised in the time of Julius Cæsar? Nodoubt they were traceable to a more ancient people. 

Such a hypothesis, in Larsoneur's opinion, betrayed a lack ofpatriotism. 

No matter; there is nothing to show that these monuments are the work ofGauls. "Show us a text!"

The Academician was displeased, and made no reply; and they were veryglad of it, so much had the Druids bored them. 

If they did not know what conclusion to arrive at as to earthenware andas to Celticism, it was because they were ignorant of history, especially the history of France. 

The work of Anquetil was in their library; but the series of "do-nothingkings" amused them very little. The villainy of the mayors of the Palacedid not excite their indignation, and they gave Anquetil up, repelled bythe ineptitude of his reflections. 

Then they asked Dumouchel, "What is the best history of France?"

Dumouchel subscribed, in their names, to a circulating library, andforwarded to them the work of Augustin Thierry, together with twovolumes of M. De Genoude. 

According to Genoude, royalty, religion, and the nationalassemblies--here are "the principles" of the French nation, which goback to the Merovingians. The Carlovingians fell away from them. TheCapetians, being in accord with the people, made an effort to maintainthem. Absolute power was established under Louis XIII. , in order toconquer Protestantism, the final effort of feudalism; and '89 is areturn to the constitution of our ancestors. 

Pécuchet admired his ideas. They excited Bouvard's pity, as he had readAugustin Thierry first: "What trash you talk with your French nation, seeing that France did not exist! nor the national assemblies! and theCarlovingians usurped nothing at all! and the kings did not set free thecommunes! Read for yourself. "

Pécuchet gave way before the evidence, and surpassed him in scientificstrictness. He would have considered himself dishonoured if he had said"Charlemagne" and not "Karl the Great, " "Clovis" in place of "Clodowig. "

Nevertheless he was beguiled by Genoude, deeming it a clever thing tojoin together both ends of French history, so that the middle periodbecomes rubbish; and, in order to ease their minds about it, they tookup the collection of Buchez and Roux. 

But the fustian of the preface, that medley of Socialism andCatholicism, disgusted them; and the excessive accumulation of detailsprevented them from grasping the whole. 

They had recourse to M. Thiers. 

It was during the summer of 1845, in the garden beneath the arbour. Pécuchet, his feet resting on a small chair, read aloud in his cavernousvoice, without feeling tired, stopping to plunge his fingers into hissnuff-box. Bouvard listened, his pipe in his mouth, his legs wide apart, and the upper part of his trousers unbuttoned. 

Old men had spoken to them of '93, and recollections that were almostpersonal gave life to the prosy descriptions of the author. At that timethe high-roads were covered with soldiers singing the "Marseillaise. " Atthe thresholds of doors women sat sewing canvas to make tents. Sometimescame a wave of men in red caps, bending forward a pike, at the end ofwhich could be seen a discoloured head with the hair hanging down. Thelofty tribune of the Convention looked down upon a cloud of dust, amidwhich wild faces were yelling cries "Death!" Anyone who passed, atmidday, close to the basin of the Tuileries could hear each blow of theguillotine, as if they were cutting up sheep. 

And the breeze moved the vine-leaves of the arbour; the ripe barleyswayed at intervals; a blackbird was singing. And, casting glancesaround them, they relished this tranquil scene. 

What a pity that from the beginning they had failed to understand oneanother! For if the royalists had reflected like the patriots, if thecourt had exhibited more candour, and its adversaries less violence, many of the calamities would not have happened. 

By force of chattering in this way they roused themselves into a stateof excitement. Bouvard, being liberal-minded and of a sensitive nature, was a Constitutionalist, a Girondist, a Thermidorian; Pécuchet, beingof a bilious temperament and a lover of authority, declared himself a_sans-culotte_, and even a Robespierrist. He expressed approval of thecondemnation of the King, the most violent decrees, the worship of theSupreme Being. Bouvard preferred that of Nature. He would have salutedwith pleasure the image of a big woman pouring out from her breasts toher adorers not water but Chambertin. 

In order to have more facts for the support of their arguments theyprocured other works: Montgaillard, Prudhomme, Gallois, Lacretelle, etc. ; and the contradictions of these books in no way embarrassed them. Each took from them what might vindicate the cause that he espoused. 

Thus Bouvard had no doubt that Danton accepted a hundred thousand crownsto bring forward motions that would destroy the Republic; while inPécuchet's opinion Vergniaud would have asked for six thousand francs amonth. 

"Never! Explain to me, rather, why Robespierre's sister had a pensionfrom Louis XVIII. "

"Not at all! It was from Bonaparte. And, since you take it that way, whois the person that a few months before Égalité's death had a secretconference with him? I wish they would reinsert in the _Memoirs of LaCampan_ the suppressed paragraphs. The death of the Dauphin appears tome equivocal. The powder magazine at Grenelle by exploding killed twothousand persons. The cause was unknown, they tell us: what nonsense!"For Pécuchet was not far from understanding it, and threw the blame forevery crime on the manoeuvres of the aristocrats, gold, and theforeigner. 

In the mind of Bouvard there could be no dispute as to the use of thewords, "Ascend to heaven, son of St. Louis, " as to the incident aboutthe virgins of Verdun, or as to the _culottes_ clothed in human skin. Heaccepted Prudhomme's lists, a million of victims, exactly. 

But the Loire, red with gore from Saumur to Nantes, in a line ofeighteen leagues, made him wonder. Pécuchet in the same degreeentertained doubts, and they began to distrust the historians. 

For some the Revolution is a Satanic event; others declare it to be asublime exception. The vanquished on each side naturally play the partof martyrs. 

Thierry demonstrates, with reference to the Barbarians, that it isfoolish to institute an inquiry as to whether such a prince was good orwas bad. Why not follow this method in the examination of more recentepochs? But history must needs avenge morality: we feel grateful toTacitus for having lacerated Tiberius. After all, whether the Queen hadlovers; whether Dumouriez, since Valmy, intended to betray her; whetherin Prairial it was the Mountain or the Girondist party that began, andin Thermidor the Jacobins or the Plain; what matters it to thedevelopment of the Revolution, of which the causes were far to seek andthe results incalculable?

Therefore it was bound to accomplish itself, to be what it was; but, suppose the flight of the King without impediment, Robespierre escapingor Bonaparte assassinated--chances which depended upon an innkeeperproving less scrupulous, a door being left open, or a sentinel fallingasleep--and the progress of the world would have taken a differentdirection. 

They had no longer on the men and the events of that period a singlewell-balanced idea. In order to form an impartial judgment upon it, itwould have been necessary to have read all the histories, all thememoirs, all the newspapers, and all the manuscript productions, forthrough the least omission might arise an error, which might lead toothers without limit. 

They abandoned the subject. But the taste for history had come to them, the need of truth for its own sake. 

Perhaps it is easier to find it in more ancient epochs? The authors, being far removed from the events, ought to speak of them withoutpassion. And they began the good Rollin. 

"What a heap of rubbish!" exclaimed Bouvard, after the first chapter. 

"Wait a bit, " said Pécuchet, rummaging at the end of their library, where lay heaped up the books of the last proprietor, an old lawyer, anaccomplished man with a mania for literature; and, having put out oftheir places a number of novels and plays, together with an edition ofMontesquieu and translations of Horace, he obtained what he was lookingfor--Beaufort's work on Roman History. 

Titus Livius attributes the foundation of Rome to Romulus; Sallust givesthe credit of it to the Trojans under Æneas. Coriolanus died in exile, according to Fabius Pictor; through the stratagems of Attius Tullius, ifwe may believe Dionysius. Seneca states that Horatius Cocles came backvictorious; and Dionysius that he was wounded in the leg. And La Mothele Vayer gives expression to similar doubts with reference to othernations. 

There is no agreement as to the antiquity of the Chaldeans, the age ofHomer, the existence of Zoroaster, the two empires of Assyria. QuintusCurtius has manufactured fables. Plutarch gives the lie to Herodotus. Weshould have a different idea of Cæsar if Vercingetorix had written hisCommentaries. 

Ancient history is obscure through want of documents. There is anabundance of them in modern history; and Bouvard and Pécuchet came backto France, and began Sismondi. 

The succession of so many men filled them with a desire to understandthem more thoroughly, to enter into their lives. They wanted to read theoriginals--Gregory of Tours, Monstrelet, Commines, all those whose nameswere odd or agreeable. But the events got confused through want ofknowledge of the dates. 

Fortunately they possessed Dumouchel's work on mnemonics, a duodecimo inboards with this epigraph: "To instruct while amusing. "

It combined the three systems of Allevy, of Pâris, and of Fenaigle. 

Allevy transforms numbers into external objects, the number 1 beingexpressed by a tower, 2 by a bird, 3 by a camel, and so on. Pârisstrikes the imagination by means of rebuses: an armchair garnished withclincher-nails will give "Clou, vis--Clovis"; and, as the sound offrying makes "ric, ric, " whitings in a stove will recall "Chilperic. "Fenaigle divides the universe into houses, which contain rooms, eachhaving four walls with nine panels, and each panel bearing an emblem. Apharos on a mountain will tell the name of "Phar-a-mond" in Pâris'ssystem; and, according to Allevy's directions, by placing above amirror, which signifies 4, a bird 2, and a hoop 0, we shall obtain 420, the date of that prince's accession. 

For greater clearness, they took as their mnemotechnic basis their ownhouse, their domicile, associating a distinct fact with each part of it;and the courtyard, the garden, the outskirts, the entire country, hadfor them no meaning any longer except as objects for facilitatingmemory. The boundaries in the fields defined certain epochs; the appletrees were genealogical stems, the bushes battles; everything becamesymbolic. They sought for quantities of absent things on their walls, ended by seeing them, but lost the recollection of what dates theyrepresented. 

Besides the dates are not always authentic. They learned out of a manualfor colleges that the birth of Jesus ought to be carried back five yearsearlier than the date usually assigned for it; that there were amongstthe Greeks three ways of counting the Olympiads, and eight amongst theLatin of making the year begin. So many opportunities for mistakesoutside of those which result from the zodiacs, from the epochs, andfrom the different calendars!

And from carelessness as to dates they passed to contempt for facts. 

What is important is the philosophy of history!

Bouvard could not finish the celebrated discourse of Bossuet. 

"The eagle of Meaux is a farce-actor! He forgets China, the Indies, andAmerica; but is careful to let us know that Theodosius was 'the joy ofthe universe, ' that Abraham 'treated kings as his equals, ' and that thephilosophy of the Greeks has come down from the Hebrews. Hispreoccupation with the Hebrews provokes me. "

Pécuchet shared this opinion, and wished to make him read Vico. 

"Why admit, " objected Bouvard, "that fables are more true than thetruths of historians?"

Pécuchet tried to explain myths, and got lost in the _Scienza Nuova_. 

"Will you deny the design of Providence?"

"I don't know it!" said Bouvard. And they decided to refer to Dumouchel. 

The professor confessed that he was now at sea on the subject ofhistory. 

"It is changing every day. There is a controversy as to the kings ofRome and the journeys of Pythagoras. Doubts have been thrown onBelisarius, William Tell, and even on the Cid, who has become, thanks tothe latest discoveries, a common robber. It is desirable that no morediscoveries should be made, and the Institute ought even to lay down akind of canon prescribing what it is necessary to believe!"

In a postscript he sent them some rules of criticism taken from Daunou'scourse of lectures:

"To cite by way of proof the testimony of multitudes is a bad method ofproof; they are not there to reply. 

"To reject impossible things. Pausanias was shown the stone swallowed bySaturn. 

"Architecture may lie: instance, the arch of the Forum, in which Titusis called the first conqueror of Jerusalem, which had been conqueredbefore him by Pompey. 

"Medals sometimes deceive. Under Charles IX. Money was minted from thecoinage of Henry II. 

"Take into account the skill of forgers and the interestedness ofapologists and calumniators. "

Few historians have worked in accordance with these rules, but all inview of one special cause, of one religion, of one nation, of one party, of one system, in order to curb kings, to advise the people, or to offermoral examples. 

The others, who pretend merely to narrate, are no better; for everythingcannot be told--some selection must be made. But in the selection ofdocuments some special predilection will have the upper hand, and, asthis varies according to the conditions under which the writer views thematter, history will never be fixed. 

"It is sad, " was their reflection. However, one might take a subject, exhaust the sources of information concerning it, make a good analysisof them, then condense it into a narrative, which would be, as it were, an epitome of the facts reflecting the entire truth. 

"Do you wish that we should attempt to compose a history?"

"I ask for nothing better. But of what?"

"Suppose we write the life of the Duke of Angoulême?"

"But he was an idiot!" returned Bouvard. 

"What matter? Personages of an inferior mould have sometimes an enormousinfluence, and he may have controlled the machinery of public affairs. "

The books would furnish them with information; and M. De Faverges, nodoubt, would have them himself, or could procure them from some elderlygentleman of his acquaintance. 

They thought over this project, discussed it, and finally determined tospend a fortnight at the municipal library at Caen in making researchesthere. 

The librarian placed at their disposal some general histories and somepamphlets with a coloured lithograph portrait representing atthree-quarters' length Monseigneur the Duke of Angoulême. 

The blue cloth of his uniform disappeared under the epaulets, the stars, and the large red ribbon of the Legion of Honour; a very high collarsurrounded his long neck; his pear-shaped head was framed by the curlsof his hair and by his scanty whiskers and heavy eyelashes; and a verybig nose and thick lips gave his face an expression of commonplacegood-nature. 

When they had taken notes, they drew up a programme:

"Birth and childhood but slightly interesting. One of his tutors is theAbbé Guénée, Voltaire's enemy. At Turin he is made to cast a cannon; andhe studies the campaigns of Charles VIII. Also he is nominated, despitehis youth, colonel of a regiment of noble guards. 

"1797. --His marriage. 

"1814. --The English take possession of Bordeaux. He runs up behind themand shows his person to the inhabitants. Description of the prince'sperson. 

"1815. --Bonaparte surprises him. Immediately he appeals to the King ofSpain; and Toulon, were it not for Masséna, would have been surrenderedto England. 

"Operations in the South. He is beaten, but released under the promiseto restore the crown diamonds carried off at full gallop by the King, his uncle. 

"After the Hundred Days he returns with his parents and lives in peace. Several years glide away. 

"War with Spain. Once he has crossed the Pyrenees, victories everywherefollow the grandson of Henry IV. He takes the Trocadéro, reaches thepillars of Hercules, crushes the factions, embraces Ferdinand, andreturns. 

"Triumphal arches; flowers presented by young girls; dinners at thePrefecture; 'Te Deum' in the cathedrals. The Parisians are at the heightof intoxication. The city offers him a banquet. Songs containingallusions to the hero are sung at the theatre. 

"The enthusiasm diminishes; for in 1827 a ball organised by subscriptionproves a failure. 

"As he is High Admiral of France, he inspects the fleet, which is goingto start for Algiers. 

"July 1830. --Marmont informs him of the state of affairs. Then he getsinto such a rage that he wounds himself in the hand with the general'ssword. The King entrusts him with the command of all the forces. 

"He meets detachments of the line in the Bois de Boulogne, and has not aword to say to them. 

"From St. Cloud he flies to the bridge of Sèvres. Coldness of thetroops. That does not shake him. The Royal family leave Trianon. He sitsdown at the foot of an oak, unrolls a map, meditates, remounts hishorse, passes in front of St. Cyr, and sends to the students words ofhope. 

"At Rambouillet the bodyguards bid him good-bye. He embarks, and duringthe entire passage is ill. End of his career. 

"The importance possessed by the bridges ought here to be noticed. First, he exposes himself needlessly on the bridge of the Inn; hecarries the bridge St. Esprit and the bridge of Lauriol; at Lyons thetwo bridges are fatal to him, and his fortune dies before the bridge ofSèvres. 

"List of his virtues. Needless to praise his courage, to which he joineda far-seeing policy. For he offered every soldier sixty francs to desertthe Emperor, and in Spain he tried to corrupt the Constitutionalistswith ready money. 

"His reserve was so profound that he consented to the marriage arrangedbetween his father and the Queen of Etruria, to the formation of a newcabinet after the Ordinances, to the abdication in favour ofChambord--to everything that they asked him. 

"Firmness, however, was not wanting in him. At Angers, he cashiered theinfantry of the National Guard, who, jealous of the cavalry, hadsucceeded by means of a stratagem in forming his escort, so that hisHighness found himself jammed into the ranks at the cost of having hisknees squeezed. But he censured the cavalry, the cause of the disorder, and pardoned the infantry--a veritable judgment of Solomon. 

"His piety manifested itself by numerous devotions, and his clemency byobtaining the pardon of General Debelle, who had borne arms against him. 

"Intimate details; characteristics of the Prince:

"At the château of Beauregard, in his childhood, he took pleasure indeepening, along with his brother, a sheet of water, which may still beseen. On one occasion, he visited the barracks of the chasseurs, calledfor a glass of wine, and drank the King's health. 

"While walking, in order to mark the step, he used to keep repeating tohimself: 'One, two--one, two--one, two!'

"Some of his sayings have been preserved:--

"To a deputation from Bordeaux:

"'What consoles me for not being at Bordeaux is to find myself amidstyou. '

"To the Protestants of Nismes:

"'I am a good Catholic, but I shall never forget that my distinguishedancestor was a Protestant. '

"To the pupils of St. Cyr, when all was lost:

"'Right, my friends! The news is good! This is right--all right!'

"After Charles X. 's abdication:

"'Since they don't want me, let them settle it themselves. '

"And in 1814, at every turn, in the smallest village:

"'No more war; no more conscription; no more united rights. '

"His style was as good as his utterance. His proclamations surpassedeverything. 

"The first, of the Count of Artois, began thus:

"'Frenchmen, your King's brother has arrived!'

"That of the prince:

'"I come. I am the son of your kings. You are Frenchmen!'

"Order of the day, dated from Bayonne:

"'Soldiers, I come!'

"Another, in the midst of disaffection:

"'Continue to sustain with the vigour which befits the French soldierthe struggle which you have begun. France expects it of you. '

"Lastly, at Rambouillet:

"'The King has entered into an arrangement with the governmentestablished at Paris, and everything brings us to believe that thisarrangement is on the point of being concluded. '

"'Everything brings us to believe' was sublime. "

"One thing vexed me, " said Bouvard, "that there is no mention of hislove affairs!" And they made a marginal note: "To search for theprince's amours. "

At the moment when they were taking their leave, the librarian, bethinking himself of it, showed them another portrait of the Duke ofAngoulême. 

In this one he appeared as a colonel of cuirassiers, on avaulting-horse, his eyes still smaller, his mouth open, and his hairstraight. 

How were they to reconcile the two portraits? Had he straight hair, orrather crisped--unless he carried affectation so far as to get itcurled?

A grave question, from Pécuchet's point of view, for the mode of wearingthe hair indicates the temperament, and the temperament the individual. 

Bouvard considered that we know nothing of a man as long as we areignorant of his passions; and in order to clear up these two points, they presented themselves at the château of Faverges. The count was notthere; this retarded their work. They returned home annoyed. 

The door of the house was wide open; there was nobody in the kitchen. They went upstairs, and who should they see in the middle of Bouvard'sroom but Madame Bordin, looking about her right and left!

"Excuse me, " she said, with a forced laugh, "I have for the last hourbeen searching for your cook, whom I wanted for my preserves. "

They found her in the wood-house on a chair fast asleep. They shook her. She opened her eyes. 

"What is it now? You are always prodding at me with your questions!"

It was clear that Madame Bordin had been putting some to her in theirabsence. 

Germaine got out of her torpor, and complained of indigestion. 

"I am remaining to take care of you, " said the widow. 

Then they perceived in the courtyard a big cap, the lappets of whichwere fluttering. It was Madame Castillon, proprietress of a neighbouringfarm. She was calling out: "Gorju! Gorju!"

And from the corn-loft the voice of their little servant-maid answeredloudly:

"He is not there!"

At the end of five minutes she came down, with her cheeks flushed andlooking excited. Bouvard and Pécuchet reprimanded her for having been soslow. She unfastened their gaiters without a murmur. 

Then they went to look at the chest. The bakehouse was covered with itsscattered fragments; the carvings were damaged, the leaves broken. 

At this sight, in the face of this fresh disaster, Bouvard had to keepback his tears, and Pécuchet got a fit of nervous shivering. 

Gorju, making his appearance almost immediately, explained the matter. He had just put the chest outside in order to varnish it, when awandering cow knocked it down on the ground. 

"Whose cow?" said Pécuchet. 

"I don't know. "

"Ah! you left the door open, as you did some time ago. It is yourfault. "

At any rate, they would have nothing more to do with him. He had beentrifling with them too long, and they wanted no more of him or his work. 

"These gentlemen were wrong. The damage was not so great. It would beall settled before three weeks. " And Gorju accompanied them into thekitchen, where Germaine was seen dragging herself along to see after thedinner. 

They noticed on the table a bottle of Calvados, three quarters emptied. 

"By you, no doubt, " said Pécuchet to Gorju. 

"By me! never!"

Bouvard met his protest by observing:

"You are the only man in the house. "

"Well, and what about the women?" rejoined the workman, with a sidewink. 

Germaine caught him up:

"You'd better say 'twas I!"

"Certainly it was you. "

"And perhaps 'twas I smashed the press?"

Gorju danced about. 

"Don't you see that she's drunk?"

Then they squabbled violently with each other, he with a pale face and abiting manner, she purple with rage, tearing tufts of grey hair fromunder her cotton cap. Madame Bordin took Germaine's part, while Mélietook Gorju's. 

The old woman burst out:

"Isn't it an abomination that you two should be spending days togetherin the grove, not to speak of the nights?--a sort of Parisian, eating uphonest women, who comes to our master's house to play tricks on them!"

Bouvard opened his eyes wide. 

"What tricks?"

"I tell you he's making fools of you!"

"Nobody can make a fool of me!" exclaimed Pécuchet, and, indignant ather insolence, exasperated by the mortification inflicted on him, hedismissed her, telling her to go and pack. Bouvard did not oppose thisdecision, and they went out, leaving Germaine in sobs over hermisfortune, while Madame Bordin was trying to console her. 

In the course of the evening, as they grew calmer, they went over theseoccurrences, asked themselves who had drunk the Calvados, how the chestgot broken, what Madame Castillon wanted when she was calling Gorju, andwhether he had dishonoured Mélie. 

"We are not able to tell, " said Bouvard, "what is happening in our ownhousehold, and we lay claim to discover all about the hair and the loveaffairs of the Duke of Angoulême. "

Pécuchet added: "How many questions there are in other respectsimportant and still more difficult!"

Whence they concluded that external facts are not everything. It isnecessary to complete them by means of psychology. Without imagination, history is defective. 

"Let us send for some historical romances!"

[Illustration]

CHAPTER V. 

ROMANCE AND THE DRAMA. 

They first read Walter Scott. 

It was like the surprise of a new world. 

The men of the past who had for them been only phantoms or names, becameliving beings, kings, princes, wizards, footmen, gamekeepers, monks, gipsies, merchants, and soldiers, who deliberate, fight, travel, trade, eat and drink, sing and pray, in the armouries of castles, on theblackened benches of inns, in the winding streets of cities, under thesloping roofs of booths, in the cloisters of monasteries. Landscapesartistically arranged formed backgrounds for the narratives, like thescenery of a theatre. You follow with your eyes a horseman gallopingalong the strand; you breathe amid the heather the freshness of thewind; the moon shines on the lake, over which a boat is skimming; thesun glitters on the breast-plates; the rain falls over leafy huts. Without having any knowledge of the models, they thought these pictureslifelike and the illusion was complete. 

And so the winter was spent. 

When they had breakfasted, they would instal themselves in the littleroom, one at each side of the chimney-piece, and, facing each other, book in hand, they would begin to read in silence. When the day woreapace, they would go out for a walk along the road, then, havingsnatched a hurried dinner, they would resume their reading far into thenight. In order to protect himself from the lamp, Bouvard wore bluespectacles, while Pécuchet kept the peak of his cap drawn over hisforehead. 

Germaine had not gone, and Gorju now and again came to dig in thegarden; for they had yielded through indifference, forgetful of materialthings. 

After Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas diverted them after the fashion of amagic-lantern. His personages, active as apes, strong as bulls, gay aschaffinches, enter on the scene and talk abruptly, jump off roofs to thepavement, receive frightful wounds from which they recover, are believedto be dead, and yet reappear. There are trap-doors under the boards, antidotes, disguises; and all things get entangled, hurry along, and arefinally unravelled without a minute for reflection. Love observes theproprieties, fanaticism is cheerful, and massacres excite a smile. 

Rendered hard to please by these two masters, they could not toleratethe balderdash of the _Belisaraire_, the foolery of the _NumaPompilius_, of Marchangy, and Vicomte d'Arlincourt. The colouring ofFrédéric Soulié (like that of the book-lover Jacob) appeared to theminsufficient; and M. Villemain scandalised them by showing at page 85 ofhis _Lascaris_, a Spaniard smoking a pipe--a long Arab pipe--in themiddle of the fifteenth century. 

Pécuchet consulted the _Biographie Universelle_, and undertook to reviseDumas from the point of view of science. 

The author in _Les Deux Dianes_ makes a mistake with regard to dates. The marriage of the Dauphin, Francis, took place on the 15th of October, 1548, and not on the 20th of May, 1549. How does he know (see _Le Pagedu Duc de Savoie_) that Catherine de Medicis, after her husband's death, wished to resume the war? It is not very probable that the Duke of Anjouwas crowned at night in a church, an episode which adorns _La Dame deMontsoreau_. _La Reine Margot_ especially swarms with errors. The Dukeof Nevers was not absent. He gave his opinion at the council before thefeast of St. Bartholomew, and Henry of Navarre did not follow theprocession four days after. Henry III. Did not come back from Poland soquickly. Besides, how many flimsy devices! The miracle of the hawthorn, the balcony of Charles IX. , the poisoned glass of Jeanned'Albret--Pécuchet no longer had any confidence in Dumas. 

He even lost all respect for Walter Scott on account of the oversightsin his _Quentin Durward_. The murder of the Archbishop of Liège isanticipated by fifteen years. The wife of Robert de Lamarck was Jeanned'Arschel and not Hameline de Croy. Far from being killed by a soldier, he was put to death by Maximilian; and the face of Temeraire, when hiscorpse was found, did not express any menace, inasmuch as the wolves hadhalf devoured it. 

None the less, Bouvard went on with Walter Scott, but ended by gettingweary of the repetition of the same effects. The heroine usually livesin the country with her father, and the lover, a plundered heir, isre-established in his rights and triumphs over his rivals. There arealways a mendicant philosopher, a morose nobleman, pure young girls, facetious retainers, and interminable dialogues, stupid prudishness, andan utter absence of depth. 

In his dislike to bric-à-brac, Bouvard took up George Sand. 

He went into raptures over the beautiful adulteresses and noble lovers, would have liked to be Jacques, Simon, Lélio, and to have lived inVenice. He uttered sighs, did not know what was the matter with him, andfelt himself changed. 

Pécuchet, who was working up historical literature studied plays. Heswallowed two _Pharamonds_, three _Clovises_, four _Charlemagnes_, several _Philip Augustuses_, a crowd of _Joan of Arcs_, many _Marquisesde Pompadours_, and some _Conspiracies of Cellamare_. 

Nearly all of them appeared still more stupid than the romances. Forthere exists for the stage a conventional history which nothing candestroy. Louis XI. Will not fail to kneel before the little images inhis hat; Henry IV. Will be constantly jovial, Mary Stuart tearful, Richelieu cruel; in short, all the characters seem taken from a singleblock, from love of simplicity and regard for ignorance, so that theplaywright, far from elevating, lowers, and, instead of instructing, stupefies. 

As Bouvard had spoken eulogistically to him about George Sand, Pécuchetproceeded to read _Consuelo_, _Horace_, and _Mauprat_, was beguiled bythe author's vindication of the oppressed, the socialistic andrepublican aspect of her works, and the discussions contained in them. 

According to Bouvard, however, these elements spoiled the story, and heasked for love-tales at the circulating library. 

They read aloud, one after the other, _La Nouvelle Héloïse_, _Delphine_, _Adolphe_, and _Ourika_. But the listener's yawns proved contagious, forthe book slipped out of the reader's hand to the floor. 

They found fault with the last-mentioned works for making no referenceto the environment, the period, the costume of the various personages. The heart alone is the theme--nothing but sentiment! as if there werenothing else in the world. 

They next went in for novels of the humorous order, such as the _Voyageautour de ma Chambre_, by Xavier de Maistre, and _Sous les Tilleuls_, byAlphonse Karr. In books of this description the author must interruptthe narrative in order to talk about his dog, his slippers, or hismistress. 

A style so free from formality charmed them at first, then appearedstupid to them, for the author effaces his work while displaying in ithis personal surroundings. 

Through need of the dramatic element, they plunged into romances ofadventure. The more entangled, extraordinary, and impossible the plotwas, the more it interested them. They did their best to foresee the_dénouement_, became very excited over it, and tired themselves out witha piece of child's play unworthy of serious minds. 

The work of Balzac amazed them like a Babylon, and at the same time likegrains of dust under the microscope. 

In the most commonplace things arise new aspects. They never suspectedthat there were such depths in modern life. 

"What an observer!" exclaimed Bouvard. 

"For my part I consider him chimerical, " Pécuchet ended by declaring. "He believes in the occult sciences, in monarchy, in rank; is dazzled byrascals; turns up millions for you like centimes; and middle-classpeople are not with him middle-class people at all, but giants. Whyinflate what is unimportant, and waste description on silly things? Hewrote one novel on chemistry, another on banking, another onprinting-machines, just as one Ricard produced _The Cabman_, _TheWater-Carrier_ and _The Cocoa-Nut Seller_. We should soon have books onevery trade and on every province; then on every town and on thedifferent stories of every house, and on every individual--which wouldbe no longer literature but statistics or ethnography. "

The process was of little consequence in Bouvard's estimation. He wantedto get information--to acquire a deeper knowledge of human nature. Heread Paul de Kock again, and ran through the _Old Hermits of theChaussée d'Antin_. 

"Why lose one's time with such absurdities?" said Pécuchet. 

"But they might be very interesting as a series of documents. "

"Go away with your documents! I want something to lift me up, and takeme away from the miseries of this world. "

And Pécuchet, craving for the ideal, led Bouvard unconsciously towardstragedy. 

The far-off times in which the action takes place, the interests withwhich it is concerned, and the high station of its leading personagesimpressed them with a certain sense of grandeur. 

One day Bouvard took up _Athalie_, and recited the dream so well thatPécuchet wished to attempt it in his turn. From the opening sentence hisvoice got lost in a sort of humming sound. It was monotonous and, thoughstrong, indistinct. 

Bouvard, full of experience, advised him, in order to render itwell-modulated, to roll it out from the lowest tone to the highest, andto draw it back by making use of an ascending and descending scale; andhe himself went through this exercise every morning in bed, according tothe precept of the Greeks. Pécuchet, at the time mentioned, worked inthe same fashion: each had his door closed, and they went on bawlingseparately. 

The features that pleased them in tragedy were the emphasis, thepolitical declamations, and the maxims on the perversity of things. 

They learned by heart the most celebrated dialogues of Racine andVoltaire, and they used to declaim them in the corridor. Bouvard, as ifhe were at the Théâtre Français, strutted, with his hand on Pécuchet'sshoulder, stopping at intervals; and, with rolling eyes, he would openwide his arms, and accuse the Fates. He would give forth fine bursts ofgrief from the _Philoctète_ of La Harpe, a nice death-rattle from_Gabrielle de Vergy_, and, when he played Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, the way in which he represented that personage gazing at his son whileexclaiming, "Monster, worthy of me!" was indeed terrible. Pécuchetforgot his part in it. The ability, and not the will, was what helacked. 

On one occasion, in the _Cléopâtre_ of Marmontel, he fancied that hecould reproduce the hissing of the asp, just as the automaton inventedfor the purpose by Vaucanson might have done it. The abortive effortmade them laugh all the evening. The tragedy sank in their estimation. 

Bouvard was the first to grow tired of it, and, dealing frankly with thesubject, demonstrated how artificial and limping it was, the sillinessof its incidents, and the absurdity of the disclosures made toconfidants. 

They then went in for comedy, which is the school for fine shading. Every sentence must be dislocated, every word must be underlined, andevery syllable must be weighed. Pécuchet could not manage it, and gotquite stranded in _Celimène_. Moreover, he thought the lovers very cold, the disputes a bore, and the valets intolerable--Clitandre andSganarelle as unreal as Ægistheus and Agamemnon. 

There remained the serious comedy or tragedy of everyday life, where wesee fathers of families afflicted, servants saving their masters, richmen offering others their fortunes, innocent seamstresses and villainouscorrupters, a species which extends from Diderot to Pixérécourt. Allthese plays preaching about virtue disgusted them by their triviality. 

The drama of 1830 fascinated them by its movement, its colouring, itsyouthfulness. They made scarcely any distinction between Victor Hugo, Dumas, or Bouchardy, and the diction was no longer to be pompous orfine, but lyrical, extravagant. 

One day, as Bouvard was trying to make Pécuchet understand FrédéricLemaître's acting, Madame Bordin suddenly presented herself in a greenshawl, carrying with her a volume of Pigault-Lebrun, the two gentlemenbeing so polite as to lend her novels now and then. 

"But go on!" for she had been a minute there already, and had listenedto them with pleasure. 

They hoped she would excuse them. She insisted. 

"Faith!" said Bouvard, "there's nothing to prevent----"

Pécuchet, through bashfulness, remarked that he could not act unpreparedand without costume. 

"To do it effectively, we should need to disguise ourselves!"

And Bouvard looked about for something to put on, but found only theGreek cap, which he snatched up. 

As the corridor was not big enough, they went down to the drawing-room. Spiders crawled along the walls, and the geological specimens thatencumbered the floor had whitened with their dust the velvet of thearmchairs. On the chair which had least dirt on it they spread a cover, so that Madame Bordin might sit down. 

It was necessary to give her something good. 

Bouvard was in favour of the _Tour de Nesle_. But Pécuchet was afraid ofparts which called for too much action. 

"She would prefer some classical piece! _Phèdre_, for instance. "

"Be it so. "

Bouvard set forth the theme: "It is about a queen whose husband has ason by another wife. She has fallen madly in love with the young man. Are we there? Start!

 "'Yes, prince! for Theseus I grow faint, I burn-- I love him!'"[9]

And, addressing Pécuchet's side-face, he gushed out admiration of hisport, his visage, "that charming head"; grieved at not having met himwith the Greek fleet; would have gladly been lost with him in thelabyrinth. 

The border of the red cap bent forward amorously, and his tremblingvoice and his appealing face begged of the cruel one to take pity on ahopeless flame. 

Pécuchet, turning aside, breathed hard to emphasise his emotion. 

Madame Bordin, without moving, kept her eyes wide open, as if gazing atpeople whirling round; Mélie was listening behind the door; Gorju, inhis shirt-sleeves, was staring at them through the window. Bouvard madea dash into the second part. His acting gave expression to the deliriumof the senses, remorse, despair; and he flung himself on the imaginarysword of Pécuchet with such violence that, slipping over some of thestone specimens, he was near tumbling on the ground. 

"Pay no attention! Then Theseus arrives, and she poisons herself. "

"Poor woman!" said Madame Bordin. 

After this they begged of her to choose a piece for them. 

She felt perplexed about making a selection. She had seen only threepieces: _Robert le Diable_ in the capital, _Le Jeune Mari_ at Rouen, andanother at Falaise which was very funny, and which was called _LaBrouette du Vinaigrier_. [10]

Finally, Bouvard suggested to her the great scene of Tartuffe in thesecond act. 

Pécuchet thought an explanation was desirable:

"You must know that Tartuffe----"

Madame Bordin interrupted him: "We know what a Tartuffe is. "

Bouvard had wished for a robe for a certain passage. 

"I see only the monk's habit, " said Pécuchet. 

"No matter; bring it here. "

He reappeared with it and a copy of Molière. 

The opening was tame, but at the place where Tartuffe caresses Elmire'sknees, Pécuchet assumed the tone of a gendarme:

"_What is your hand doing there?_"

Bouvard instantly replied in a sugary voice:

"_I am feeling your dress; the stuff of it is marrowy. _"

And he shot forth glances from his eyes, bent forward his mouth, sniffedwith an exceedingly lecherous air, and ended by even addressing himselfto Madame Bordin. 

His impassioned gaze embarrassed her, and when he stopped, humble andpalpitating, she almost sought for something to say in reply. 

Pécuchet took refuge in the book: "_The declaration is quite gallant. _"

"Ha! yes, " cried she; "he is a bold wheedler. "

"Is it not so?" returned Bouvard confidently. "But here's another with amore modern touch about it. " And, having opened his coat, he squattedover a piece of ashlar, and, with his head thrown back, burst forth:

 "Your eyes' bright flame my vision floods with joy. Sing me some song like those, in bygone years, You sang at eve, your dark eye filled with tears. "[11]

"That is like me, " she thought. 

 "Drink and be merry! let the wine-cup flow: Give me this hour, and all the rest may go!"[12]

"How droll you are!" And she laughed with a little laugh, which made herthroat rise up, and exposed her teeth. 

 "Ah! say, is it not sweet To love and see your lover at your feet?"[13]

He knelt down. 

"Finish, then. "

 "'Oh! let me sleep and dream upon thy breast, My beauty, Doña Sol, my love!'[14]

"Here the bells are heard, and they are disturbed by a mountaineer. "

"Fortunately; for, but for that----" And Madame Bordin smiled, in placeof finishing the sentence. 

It was getting dark. She arose. 

It had been raining a short time before, and the path through the beechgrove not being dry enough, it was more convenient to return across thefields. Bouvard accompanied her into the garden, in order to open thegate for her. 

At first they walked past the trees cut like distaffs, without a wordbeing spoken on either side. He was still moved by his declamation, andshe, at the bottom of her heart, felt a certain kind of fascination, acharm which was generated by the influence of literature. There areoccasions when art excites commonplace natures; and worlds may beunveiled by the clumsiest interpreters. 

The sun had reappeared, making the leaves glisten, and casting luminousspots here and there amongst the brakes. Three sparrows with littlechirpings hopped on the trunk of an old linden tree which had fallen tothe ground. A hawthorn in blossom exhibited its pink sheath; lilacsdrooped, borne down by their foliage. 

"Ah! that does one good!" said Bouvard, inhaling the air till it filledhis lungs. 

"You are so painstaking. "

"It is not that I have talent; but as for fire, I possess some of that. "

"One can see, " she returned, pausing between the words, "that you--werein love--in your early days. "

"Only in my early days, you believe?"

She stopped. "I know nothing about it. "

"What does she mean?" And Bouvard felt his heart beating. 

A little pool in the middle of the gravel obliging them to step aside, they got up on the hedgerow. 

Then they chatted about the recital. 

"What is the name of your last piece?"

"It is taken from _Hernani_, a drama. "

"Ha!" then slowly and as if in soliloquy, "it must be nice to have agentleman say such things to you--in downright earnest. "

"I am at your service, " replied Bouvard. 

"You?"

"Yes, I. "

"What a joke!"

"Not the least in the world!"

And, having cast a look about him, he caught her from behind round thewaist and kissed the nape of her neck vigorously. 

She became very pale as if she were going to faint, and leaned one handagainst a tree, then opened her eyes and shook her head. 

"It is past. "

He looked at her in amazement. 

The grating being open, she got up on the threshold of the littlegateway. 

There was a water-channel at the opposite side. She gathered up all thefolds of her petticoat and stood on the brink hesitatingly. 

"Do you want my assistance?"

"Unnecessary. "

"Why not?"

"Ha! you are too dangerous!" And as she jumped down, he could see herwhite stocking. 

Bouvard blamed himself for having wasted an opportunity. Bah! he shouldhave one again--and then not all women are alike. With some of them youmust be blunt, while audacity destroys you with others. In short, he wassatisfied with himself--and he did not confide his hope to Pécuchet;this was through fear of the remarks that would be passed, and not atall through delicacy. 

From that time forth they used to recite in the presence of Mélie andGorju, all the time regretting that they had not a private theatre. 

The little servant-girl was amused without understanding a bit of it, wondering at the language, charmed at the roll of the verses. Gorjuapplauded the philosophic passages in the tragedies, and everything inthe people's favour in the melodramas, so that, delighted at his goodtaste, they thought of giving him lessons, with a view to making anactor of him subsequently. This prospect dazzled the workman. 

Their performances by this time became the subject of general gossip. Vaucorbeil spoke to them about the matter in a sly fashion. Most peopleregarded their acting with contempt. 

They only prided themselves the more upon it. They crowned themselvesartists. Pécuchet wore moustaches, and Bouvard thought he could not doanything better, with his round face and his bald patch, than to givehimself a head _à la_ Béranger. Finally, they determined to write aplay. 

The subject was the difficulty. They searched for it while they were atbreakfast, and drank coffee, a stimulant indispensable for the brain, then two or three little glasses. They would next take a nap on theirbeds, after which they would make their way down to the fruit garden andtake a turn there; and at length they would leave the house to findinspiration outside, and, after walking side by side, they would comeback quite worn out. 

Or else they would shut themselves up together. Bouvard would sweep thetable, lay down paper in front of him, dip his pen, and remain with hiseyes on the ceiling; whilst Pécuchet, in the armchair, would be plungedin meditation, with his legs stretched out and his head down. 

Sometimes they felt a shivering sensation, and, as it were, the passingbreath of an idea, but at the very moment when they were seizing it, ithad vanished. 

But methods exist for discovering subjects. You take a title at random, and a fact trickles out of it. You develop a proverb; you combine anumber of adventures so as to form only one. None of these devices cameto anything. In vain they ran through collections of anecdotes, severalvolumes of celebrated trials, and a heap of historical works. 

And they dreamed of being acted at the Odéon, had their thoughts fixedon theatrical performances, and sighed for Paris. 

"I was born to be an author instead of being buried in the country!"said Bouvard. 

"And I likewise, " chimed in Pécuchet. 

Then came an illumination to their minds. If they had so much troubleabout it, the reason was their ignorance of the rules. 

They studied them in the _Pratique du Théâtre_, by D'Aubignac, and insome works not quite so old-fashioned. 

Important questions are discussed in them: Whether comedy can be writtenin verse; whether tragedy does not go outside its limits by taking itssubject from modern history; whether the heroes ought to be virtuous;what kinds of villains it allows; up to what point horrors arepermissible in it; that the details should verge towards a single end;that the interest should increase; that the conclusion should harmonisewith the opening--these were unquestionable propositions. 

 "Invent resorts that can take hold of me, "

says Boileau. By what means were they to "invent resorts?"

 "So that in all your speeches passion's dart May penetrate, and warm, and move the heart. "[15]

How were they to "warm the heart?"

Rules, therefore, were not sufficient; there was need, in addition, forgenius. And genius is not sufficient either. Corneille, according to theFrench Academy, understands nothing about the stage; Geoffroy disparagedVoltaire; Souligny scoffed at Racine; La Harpe blushed at Shakespeare'sname. 

Becoming disgusted with the old criticism, they wished to makeacquaintance with the new, and sent for the notices of plays in thenewspapers. 

What assurance! What obstinacy! What dishonesty! Outrages onmasterpieces; respect shown for platitudes; the gross ignorance of thosewho pass for scholars, and the stupidity of others whom they describe aswitty. 

Perhaps it is to the public that one must appeal. 

But works that have been applauded sometimes displeased them, andamongst plays that were hissed there were some that they admired. 

Thus the opinions of persons of taste are unreliable, while the judgmentof the multitude is incomprehensible. 

Bouvard submitted the problem to Barberou. Pécuchet, on his side, wroteto Dumouchel. 

The ex-commercial traveller was astonished at the effeminacy engenderedby provincial life. His old Bouvard was turning into a blockhead; inshort, "he was no longer in it at all. "

"The theatre is an article of consumption like any other. It isadvertised in the newspapers. We go to the theatre to be amused. Thegood thing is the thing that amuses. "

"But, idiot, " exclaimed Pécuchet, "what amuses you is not what amusesme; and the others, as well as yourself, will be weary of it by and by. If plays are written expressly to be acted, how is it that the best ofthem can be always read?"

And he awaited Dumouchel's reply. According to the professor, theimmediate fate of a play proved nothing. The _Misanthrope_ and _Athalie_are dying out. _Zaïre_ is no longer understood. Who speaks to-day ofDucange or of Picard? And he recalled all the great contemporarysuccesses from _Fanchon la Vielleuse_ to _Gaspardo le Pêcheur_, anddeplored the decline of our stage. The cause of it is the contempt forliterature, or rather for style; and, with the aid of certain authorsmentioned by Dumouchel, they learned the secret of the various styles;how we get the majestic, the temperate, the ingenuous, the touches thatare noble and the expressions that are low. "Dogs" may be heightened by"devouring"; "to vomit" is to be used only figuratively; "fever" isapplied to the passions; "valiance" is beautiful in verse. 

"Suppose we made verses?" said Pécuchet. 

"Yes, later. Let us occupy ourselves with prose first. "

A strict recommendation is given to choose a classic in order to mouldyourself upon it; but all of them have their dangers, and not only havethey sinned in point of style, but still more in point of phraseology. 

This assertion disconcerted Bouvard and Pécuchet, and they set aboutstudying grammar. 

Has the French language, in its idiomatic structure definite articlesand indefinite, as in Latin? Some think that it has, others that it hasnot. They did not venture to decide. 

The subject is always in agreement with the verb, save on the occasionswhen the subject is not in agreement with it. 

There was formerly no distinction between the verbal adjective and thepresent participle; but the Academy lays down one not very easy tograsp. 

They were much pleased to learn that the pronoun _leur_ is used forpersons, but also for things, while _où_ and _en_ are used for thingsand sometimes for persons. 

Ought we to say _Cette femme a l'air bon_ or _l'air bonne_?--_une bûchede bois sec_, or _de bois sèche_?--_ne pas laisser de_, or _quede_?--_une troupe de voleurs survint_, or _survinrent_?

Other difficulties: _Autour_ and _à l'entour_ of which Racine andBoileau did not see the difference; _imposer_, or _en imposer_, synonyms with Massillon and Voltaire; _croasser_ and _coasser_, confounded by La Fontaine, who knew, however, how to distinguish a crowfrom a frog. 

The grammarians, it is true, are at variance. Some see a beauty whereothers discover a fault. They admit principles of which they reject theconsequences, announce consequences of which they repudiate theprinciples, lean on tradition, throw over the masters, and adoptwhimsical refinements. 

Ménage, instead of _lentilles_ and _cassonade_, approves of _nentilles_and _castonade_; Bonhours, _jérarchie_ and not _hiérarchie_ and M. Chapsal speaks of _les oeils de la soupe_. 

Pécuchet was amazed above all at Jénin. What! _z'annetons_ would bebetter than _hannetons_, _z'aricots_ than _haricots_! and, under LouisXIV. , the pronunciation was _Roume_ and _Monsieur de Lioune_, instead of_Rome_ and _Monsieur de Lionne_!

Littré gave them the finishing stroke by declaring that there never hadbeen, and never could be positive orthography. They concluded thatsyntax is a whim and grammar an illusion. 

At this period, moreover, a new school of rhetoric declared that weshould write as we speak, and that all would be well so long as we feltand observed. 

As they had felt and believed that they had observed, they consideredthemselves qualified to write. A play is troublesome on account of thenarrowness of its framework, but the novel has more freedom. In order towrite one they searched among their personal recollections. 

Pécuchet recalled to mind one of the head-clerks in his own office, avery nasty customer, and he felt a longing to take revenge on him bymeans of a book. 

Bouvard had, at the smoking saloon, made the acquaintance of an oldwriting-master, who was a miserable drunkard. Nothing could be soludicrous as this character. 

At the end of the week, they imagined that they could fuse these twosubjects into one. They left off there, and passed on to the following:a woman who causes the unhappiness of a family; a wife, her husband, andher lover; a woman who would be virtuous through a defect in herconformation; an ambitious man; a bad priest. They tried to bindtogether with these vague conceptions things supplied by their memory, and then made abridgments or additions. 

Pécuchet was for sentiment and ideality, Bouvard for imagery andcolouring; and they began to understand each other no longer, eachwondering that the other should be so shallow. 

The science which is known as æsthetics would perhaps settle theirdifferences. A friend of Dumouchel, a professor of philosophy, sent thema list of works on the subject. They worked separately and communicatedtheir ideas to one another. 

In the first place, what is the Beautiful?

For Schelling, it is the infinite expressing itself through the finite;for Reid, an occult quality; for Jouffroy, an indecomposable fact; forDe Maistre, that which is pleasing to virtue; for P. André, that whichagrees with reason. 

And there are many kinds of beauty: a beauty in the sciences--geometryis beautiful; a beauty in morals--it cannot be denied that the death ofSocrates was beautiful; a beauty in the animal kingdom--the beauty ofthe dog consists in his sense of smell. A pig could not be beautiful, having regard to his dirty habits; no more could a serpent, for itawakens in us ideas of vileness. The flowers, the butterflies, the birdsmay be beautiful. Finally, the first condition of beauty is unity invariety: there is the principle. 

"Yet, " said Bouvard, "two squint eyes are more varied than two straighteyes, and produce an effect which is not so good--as a rule. "

They entered upon the question of the Sublime. 

Certain objects are sublime in themselves: the noise of a torrent, profound darkness, a tree flung down by the storm. A character isbeautiful when it triumphs, and sublime when it struggles. 

"I understand, " said Bouvard; "the Beautiful is the beautiful, and theSublime the very beautiful. "

But how were they to be distinguished?

"By means of tact, " answered Pécuchet. 

"And tact--where does that come from?"

"From taste. "

"What is taste?"

It is defined as a special discernment, a rapid judgment, the power ofdistinguishing certain relationships. 

"In short, taste is taste; but all that does not tell the way to haveit. "

It is necessary to observe the proprieties. But the proprieties vary;and, let a work be ever so beautiful, it will not be alwaysirreproachable. There is, however, a beauty which is indestructible, andof whose laws we are ignorant, for its genesis is mysterious. 

Since an idea cannot be interpreted in every form, we ought to recogniselimits amongst the arts, and in each of the arts many forms; butcombinations arise in which the style of one will enter into anotherwithout the ill result of deviating from the end--of not being true. 

The too rigid application of truth is hurtful to beauty, andpreoccupation with beauty impedes truth. However, without an ideal thereis no truth; this is why types are of a more continuous reality thanportraits. Art, besides, only aims at verisimilitude; but verisimilitudedepends on the observer, and is a relative and transitory thing. 

So they got lost in discussions. Bouvard believed less and less inæsthetics. 

"If it is not a humbug, its correctness will be demonstrated byexamples. Now listen. "

And he read a note which had called for much research on his part:

"'Bouhours accuses Tacitus of not having the simplicity which historydemands. M. Droz, a professor, blames Shakespeare for his mixture of theserious and the comic. Nisard, another professor, thinks that AndréChénier is, as a poet, beneath the seventeenth century. Blair, anEnglishman, finds fault with the picture of the harpies in Virgil. Marmontel groans over the liberties taken by Homer. Lamotte does notadmit the immortality of his heroes. Vida is indignant at his similes. In short, all the makers of rhetorics, poetics, and æsthetics, appear tome idiots. "

"You are exaggerating, " said Pécuchet. 

He was disturbed by doubts; for, if (as Longinus observes) ordinaryminds are incapable of faults, the faults must be associated with themasters, and we are bound to admire them. This is going too far. However, the masters are the masters. He would have liked to make thedoctrines harmonise with the works, the critics with the poets, tograsp the essence of the Beautiful; and these questions exercised him somuch that his bile was stirred up. He got a jaundice from it. 

It was at its crisis when Marianne, Madame Bordin's cook, came with arequest from her mistress for an interview with Bouvard. 

The widow had not made her appearance since the dramatic performance. Was this an advance? But why should she employ Marianne as anintermediary? And all night Bouvard's imagination wandered. 

Next day, about two o'clock, he was walking in the corridor, andglancing out through the window from time to time. The door-bell rang. It was the notary. 

He crossed the threshold, ascended the staircase, and seated himself inthe armchair, and, after a preliminary exchange of courtesies, saidthat, tired of waiting for Madame Bordin, he had started before her. Shewished to buy the Ecalles from him. 

Bouvard experienced a kind of chilling sensation, and he hurried towardsPécuchet's room. 

Pécuchet did not know what reply to make. He was in an anxious frame ofmind, as M. Vaucorbeil was to be there presently. 

At length Madame Bordin arrived. The delay was explained by the manifestattention she had given to her toilette, which consisted of a cashmerefrock, a hat, and fine kid gloves--a costume befitting a seriousoccasion. 

After much frivolous preliminary talk she asked whether a thousandcrown-pieces would not be sufficient. 

"One acre! A thousand crown-pieces! Never!"

She half closed her eyes. "Oh! for me!"

And all three remained silent. 

M. De Faverges entered. He had a morocco case under his arm, like asolicitor; and, depositing it on the table, said:

"These are pamphlets! They deal with reform--a burning question; buthere is a thing which no doubt belongs to you. "

And he handed Bouvard the second volume of the _Mémoires du Diable_. 

Mélie, just now, had been reading it in the kitchen; and, as one oughtto watch over the morals of persons of that class, he thought he wasdoing the right thing in confiscating the book. 

Bouvard had lent it to his servant-maid. They chatted about novels. Madame Bordin liked them when they were not dismal. 

"Writers, " said M. De Faverges, "paint life in colours that are tooflattering. "

"It is necessary to paint, " urged Bouvard. 

"Then nothing can be done save to follow the example. "

"It is not a question of example. "

"At least, you will admit that they might fall into the hands of a youngdaughter. I have one. "

"And a charming one!" said the notary, with the expression ofcountenance he wore on the days of marriage contracts. 

"Well, for her sake, or rather for that of the persons that surroundher, I prohibit them in my house, for the people, my dear sir----"

"What have the people done?" said Vaucorbeil, appearing suddenly at thedoor. 

Pécuchet, who had recognised his voice, came to mingle with the company. 

"I maintain, " returned the count, "that it is necessary to prevent themfrom reading certain books. "

Vaucorbeil observed: "Then you are not in favour of education?"

"Yes, certainly. Allow me----"

"When every day, " said Marescot, "an attack is made on the government. "

"Where's the harm?"

And the nobleman and the physician proceeded to disparage LouisPhilippe, recalling the Pritchard case, and the September laws againstthe liberty of the press:

"And that of the stage, " added Pécuchet. 

Marescot could stand this no longer. 

"It goes too far, this stage of yours!"

"That I grant you, " said the count--"plays that glorify suicide. "

"Suicide is a fine thing! Witness Cato, " protested Pécuchet. 

Without replying to the argument, M. De Faverges stigmatised those worksin which the holiest things are scoffed at: the family, property, marriage. 

"Well, and Molière?" said Bouvard. 

Marescot, a man of literary taste, retorted that Molière would not passmuster any longer, and was, furthermore, a little overrated. 

"Finally, " said the count, "Victor Hugo has been pitiless--yes, pitiless--towards Marie Antoinette, by dragging over the hurdle the typeof the Queen in the character of Mary Tudor. "

"What!" exclaimed Bouvard, "I, an author, I have no right----"

"No, sir, you have no right to show us crime without putting beside it acorrective--without presenting to us a lesson. "

Vaucorbeil thought also that art ought to have an object--to aim at theimprovement of the masses. "Let us chant science, our discoveries, patriotism, " and he broke into admiration of Casimir Delavigne. 

Madame Bordin praised the Marquis de Foudras. 

The notary replied: "But the language--are you thinking of that?"

"The language? How?"

"He refers to the style, " said Pécuchet. "Do you consider his works wellwritten?"

"No doubt, exceedingly interesting. "

He shrugged his shoulders, and she blushed at the impertinence. 

Madame Bordin had several times attempted to come back to her ownbusiness transaction. It was too late to conclude it. She went off onMarescot's arm. 

The count distributed his pamphlets, requesting them to hand them roundto other people. 

Vaucorbeil was leaving, when Pécuchet stopped him. 

"You are forgetting me, doctor. "

His yellow physiognomy was pitiable, with his moustaches and his blackhair, which was hanging down under a silk handkerchief badly fastened. 

"Purge yourself, " said the doctor. And, giving him two little slaps asif to a child: "Too much nerves, too much artist!"

"No, surely!"

They summed up what they had just heard. The morality of art iscontained for every person in that which flatters that person'sinterests. No one has any love for literature. 

After this they turned over the count's pamphlets. 

They found in all of a demand for universal suffrage. 

"It seems to me, " said Pécuchet, "that we shall soon have somesquabbling. "

For he saw everything in dark colours, perhaps on account of hisjaundice. 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI. 

REVOLT OF THE PEOPLE. 

On the morning of the 25th of February, 1848, the news was brought toChavignolles, by a person who had come from Falaise, that Paris wascovered with barricades, and the next day the proclamation of theRepublic was posted up outside the mayor's office. 

This great event astonished the inhabitants. 

But when they learned that the Court of Cassation, the Court of Appeal, the Court of Exchequer, the Chamber of Notaries, the order of advocates, the Council of State, the University, the generals, and M. De laRoche-Jacquelein himself had given promise of their adherence to theprovisional government, their breasts began to expand; and, as trees ofliberty were planted at Paris, the municipal council decided that theyought to have them at Chavignolles. 

Bouvard made an offer of one, his patriotism exulting in the triumph ofthe people; as for Pécuchet, the fall of royalty confirmed hisanticipations so exactly that he must needs be satisfied. 

Gorju, obeying them with zeal, removed one of the poplar trees thatskirted the meadow above La Butte, and transported it to "the Cows'Pass, " at the entrance of the village, the place appointed for thepurpose. 

Before the hour for the ceremony, all three awaited the procession. Theyheard a drum beating, and then beheld a silver cross. After thisappeared two torches borne by the chanters, then the curé, with stole, surplice, cope, and biretta. Four altar-boys escorted him, a fifthcarried the holy-water basin, and in the rear came the sacristan. He gotup on the raised edge of the hole in which stood the poplar tree, adorned with tri-coloured ribbons. On the opposite side could be seenthe mayor and his two deputies, Beljambe and Marescot; then theprincipal personages of the district, M. De Faverges, Vaucorbeil, Coulon, the justice of the peace, an old fogy with a sleepy face. Heurtaux wore a foraging-cap, and Alexandre Petit, the new schoolmaster, had put on his frock-coat, a threadbare green garment--his Sunday coat. The firemen, whom Girbal commanded, sword in hand, stood in single file. On the other side shone the white plates of some old shakos of the timeof Lafayette--five or six, no more--the National Guard having falleninto desuetude at Chavignolles. Peasants and their wives, workmen fromneighbouring factories, and village brats, crowded together in thebackground; and Placquevent, the keeper, five feet eight inches inheight, kept them in check with a look as he walked to and fro withfolded arms. 

The curé's speech was like that of other priests in similarcircumstances. After thundering against kings, he glorified theRepublic. "Do we not say 'the republic of letters, ' 'the Christianrepublic'? What more innocent than the one, more beautiful than theother? Jesus Christ formulated our sublime device: the tree of thepeople was the tree of the Cross. In order that religion may give herfruits, she has need of charity. " And, in the name of charity, theecclesiastic implored his brethren not to commit any disorder; to returnhome peaceably. 

Then he sprinkled the tree while he invoked the blessing of God. "May itgrow, and may it recall to us our enfranchisement from all servitude, and that fraternity more bountiful than the shade of its branches. Amen. "

Some voices repeated "Amen"; and, after an interval of drum-beating, theclergy, chanting a _Te Deum_, returned along the road to the church. 

Their intervention had produced an excellent effect. The simple saw init a promise of happiness, the patriotic a mark of deference, a sort ofhomage rendered to their principles. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet thought they should have been thanked for theirpresent, or at least that an allusion should have been made to it; andthey unbosomed themselves on the subject to Faverges and the doctor. 

What mattered wretched considerations of that sort? Vaucorbeil wasdelighted with the Revolution; so was the count. He execrated theOrléans family. They would never see them any more! Good-bye to them!All for the people henceforth! And followed by Hurel, his factotum, hewent to meet the curé. 

Foureau was walking with his head down, between the notary and theinnkeeper, irritated by the ceremony, as he was apprehensive of a riot;and instinctively he turned round towards Placquevent, who, togetherwith the captain, gave vent to loud regrets at Girbal'sunsatisfactoriness and the sorry appearance of his men. 

Some workmen passed along the road singing the "Marseillaise, " withGorju among them brandishing a stick; Petit was escorting them, withfire in his eyes. 

"I don't like that!" said Marescot. "They are making a great outcry, andgetting too excited. "

"Oh, bless my soul!" replied Coulon; "young people must amusethemselves. "

Foureau heaved a sigh. "Queer amusement! and then the guillotine at theend of it!" He had visions of the scaffold, and was anticipatinghorrors. 

Chavignolles felt the rebound of the agitation in Paris. The villagerssubscribed to the newspapers. Every morning people crowded to thepost-office, and the postmistress would not have been able to getherself free from them had it not been for the captain, who sometimesassisted her. Then would follow a chat on the green. 

The first violent discussion was on the subject of Poland. 

Heurtaux and Bouvard called for its liberation. 

M. De Faverges took a different view. 

"What right have we to go there? That would be to let loose Europeagainst us. No imprudence!"

And everybody approving of this, the two Poles held their tongues. 

On another occasion, Vaucorbeil spoke in favour of Ledru-Rollin'scirculars. 

Foureau retorted with a reference to the forty-five centimes. 

"But the government, " said Pécuchet, "has suppressed slavery. "

"What does slavery matter to me?"

"Well, what about the abolition of the death-penalty in politicalcases?"

"Faith, " replied Foureau, "they would like to abolish everything. However, who knows? the tenants are already showing themselves veryexacting. "

"So much the better! The proprietors, " according to Pécuchet, "had beentoo much favoured. He that owns an estate----"

Foureau and Marescot interrupted him, exclaiming that he was acommunist. 

"I--a communist!"

And all kept talking at the same time. When Pécuchet proposed toestablish a club, Foureau had the hardihood to reply that they wouldnever see such a thing at Chavignolles. 

After this, Gorju demanded guns for the National Guard, the generalopinion having fixed on him as instructor. The only guns in the placewere those of the firemen. Girbal had possession of them. Foureau didnot care to deliver them up. 

Gorju looked at him. 

"You will find, however, that I know how to use them. "

For he added to his other occupations that of poaching, and theinnkeeper often bought from him a hare or a rabbit. 

"Faith! take them!" said Foureau. 

The same evening they began drilling. It was under the lawn, in front ofthe church. Gorju, in a blue smock-frock, with a neckcloth around hisloins, went through the movements in an automatic fashion. When he gavethe orders, his voice was gruff. 

"Draw in your bellies!"

And immediately, Bouvard, keeping back his breath, drew in his stomach, and stretched out his buttocks. 

"Good God! you're not told to make an arch. "

Pécuchet confused the ranks and the files, half-turns to the right andhalf-turns to the left; but the most pitiable sight was theschoolmaster: weak and of a slim figure, with a ring of fair beardaround his neck, he staggered under the weight of his gun, the bayonetof which incommoded his neighbours. 

They wore trousers of every colour, dirty shoulder-belts, oldregimentals that were too short, leaving their shirts visible over theirflanks; and each of them pretended that he had not the means of doingotherwise. A subscription was started to clothe the poorest of them. Foureau was niggardly, while women made themselves conspicuous. MadameBordin gave five francs, in spite of her hatred of the Republic. M. DeFaverges equipped a dozen men, and was not missing at the drill. Then hetook up his quarters at the grocer's, and gave those who came in first adrink. 

The powerful then began fawning on the lower class. Everyone went afterthe working-men. People intrigued for the favour of being associatedwith them. They became nobles. 

Those of the canton were, for the most part, weavers; others worked inthe cotton mills or at a paper factory lately established. 

Gorju fascinated them by his bluster, taught them the shoe trick, [16]and brought those whom he treated as chums to Madame Castillon's housefor a drink. 

But the peasants were more numerous, and on market days M. De Favergeswould walk about the green, make inquiries as to their wants, and try toconvert them to his own ideas. They listened without answering, likePère Gouy, ready to accept any government so long as it reduced thetaxes. 

By dint of babbling, Gorju was making a name for himself. Perhaps theymight send him into the Assembly!

M. De Faverges also was thinking of it, while seeking not to compromisehimself. 

The Conservatives oscillated between Foureau and Marescot, but, as thenotary stuck to his office, Foureau was chosen--a boor, an idiot. Thedoctor waxed indignant. Rejected in the competition, he regretted Paris, and the consciousness of his wasted life gave him a morose air. A moredistinguished career was about to open for him--what a revenge! He drewup a profession of faith, and went to read it to MM. Bouvard andPécuchet. 

They congratulated him upon it. Their opinions were identical with his. However, they wrote better, had a knowledge of history, and could cut asgood a figure as he in the Chamber. Why not? But which of them ought tooffer himself? And they entered upon a contest of delicacy. 

Pécuchet preferred that it should be his friend rather than himself. 

"No, it suits you better! you have a better deportment!"

"Perhaps so, " returned Bouvard, "but you have a better tuft of hair!"And, without solving the difficulty, they arranged their plans ofconduct. 

This vertigo of deputyship had seized on others. The captain dreamed ofit under his foraging-cap while puffing at his pipe, and theschoolmaster too in his school, and the curé also between two prayers, so that he sometimes surprised himself with his eyes towards heaven, inthe act of saying, "Grant, O my God, that I may be a deputy!"

The doctor having received some encouragement, repaired to the house ofHeurtaux, and explained to him what his chances were. The captain didnot stand on ceremony about it. Vaucorbeil was known, undoubtedly, butlittle liked by his professional brethren, especially in the case ofchemists. Everyone would bark at him; the people did not want agentleman; his best patients would leave him. And, when he weighed thesearguments, the physician regretted his weakness. 

As soon as he had gone, Heurtaux went to see Placquevent. Between oldsoldiers there should be mutual courtesy, but the rural guard, devotedthough he was to Foureau, flatly refused to help him. 

The curé demonstrated to M. De Faverges that the hour had not come. Itwas necessary to give the Republic time to get used up. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet represented to Gorju that he would never be strongenough to overcome the coalition of the peasants and the villageshop-keepers, filled him with uncertainty, and deprived him of allconfidence. 

Petit, through pride, had allowed his ambition to be seen. Beljambewarned him that, if he failed, his dismissal was certain. 

Finally, the curé got orders from the bishop to keep quiet. 

Then, only Foureau remained. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet opposed him, bringing up against him his unfriendlyattitude about the guns, his opposition to the club, his reactionaryviews, his avarice; and even persuaded Gouy that he wished to bring backthe old _régime_. Vague as was the meaning of this word to the peasant'smind, he execrated it with a hatred that had accumulated in the souls ofhis forefathers throughout ten centuries; and he turned all hisrelatives, and those of his wife, brothers-in-law, cousins, grand-nephews (a horde of them), against Foureau. 

Gorju, Vaucorbeil, and Petit kept working for the overthrow of themayor; and, the ground being thus cleared, Bouvard and Pécuchet, withoutany doubt, were likely to succeed. 

They drew lots to know which would present himself. The drawing decidednothing, and they went to consult the doctor on the subject. 

He had news for them: Flacardoux, editor of _Le Calvados_, had announcedhis candidature. The two friends had a keen sense of having beendeceived. Each felt the other's disappointment more than his own. Butpolitics had an exciting influence on them. When the election-dayarrived they went to inspect the urns. Flacardoux had carried it!

M. De Faverges had fallen back on the National Guard, without obtainingthe epaulet of commander. The people of Chavignolles contrived to getBeljambe nominated. 

This favouritism on the part of the public, so whimsical and unforeseen, dismayed Heurtaux. He had neglected his duties, confining himself toinspecting the military operations now and then, and giving utterance toa few remarks. No matter! He considered it a monstrous thing that aninnkeeper should be preferred to one who had been formerly a captain inthe Imperial service, and he said, after the invasion of the Chamber onthe 15th of May: "If the military grades give themselves away like thatin the capital, I shall be no longer astonished at what may happen. "

The reaction began. 

People believed in Louis Blanc's pineapple soup, in Flocon's bed ofgold, and Ledru-Rollin's royal orgies; and as the province pretends toknow everything that happens in Paris, the inhabitants of Chavignolleshad no doubt about these inventions, and gave credence to the mostabsurd reports. 

M. De Faverges one evening came to look for the curé, in order to tellhim that the Count de Chambord had arrived in Normandy. 

Joinville, according to Foureau, had made preparations with his sailorsto put down "these socialists of yours. " Heurtaux declared that LouisNapoleon would shortly be consul. 

The factories had stopped. Poor people wandered in large groups aboutthe country. 

One Sunday (it was in the early days of June) a gendarme suddenlystarted in the direction of Falaise. The workmen of Acqueville, Liffard, Pierre-Pont, and Saint-Rémy were marching on Chavignolles. The shedswere shut up. The municipal council assembled and passed a resolution, to prevent catastrophes, that no resistance should be offered. Thegendarmes were kept in, and orders were given to them not to showthemselves. Soon was heard, as it were, the rumbling of a storm. Thenthe song of the Girondists shook the windows, and men, arm in arm, passed along the road from Caen, dusty, sweating, in rags. They filledup the entire space in front of the council chamber, and a greathurly-burly arose. 

Gorju and two of his comrades entered the chamber. One of them was leanand wretched-looking, with a knitted waistcoat, the ribbons of whichwere hanging down; the other, black as coal--a machinist, no doubt--withhair like a brush, thick eyebrows, and old list shoes. Gorju, like ahussar, wore his waistcoat slung over his shoulder. 

All three remained standing, and the councillors, seated round thetable, which was covered with a blue cloth, gazed at their faces, palefrom privation. 

"Citizens!" said Gorju, "we want work. "

The mayor trembled. He could not find his voice. 

Marescot replied from the place where he sat that the council wouldconsider the matter directly; and when the comrades had gone out theydiscussed several suggestions. 

The first was to have stones drawn. 

In order to utilise the stones, Girbal proposed a road from Anglevilleto Tournebu. 

That from Bayeux had positively rendered the same service. 

They could clear out the pond! This was not sufficient as a public work. Or rather, dig a second pond! But in what place?

Langlois' advice was to construct an embankment along the Mortins as aprotection against an inundation. It would be better, Beljambe thought, to clear away the heather. 

It was impossible to arrive at any conclusion. To appease the crowd, Coulon went down over the peristyle and announced that they werepreparing charity workshops. 

"Charity! Thanks!" cried Gorju. "Down with the aristocrats! We want theright to work!"

It was the question of the time. He made use of it as a source ofpopularity. He was applauded. 

In turning round he elbowed Bouvard, whom Pécuchet had dragged to thespot, and they entered into conversation. Nothing could keep them back;the municipal building was surrounded; the council could not escape. 

"Where shall you get money?" said Bouvard. 

"In the rich people's houses. Besides, the government will give ordersfor public works. "

"And if works are not wanted?"

"They will have them made in advance. "

"But wages will fall, " urged Pécuchet. "When work happens to be lacking, it is because there are too many products; and you demand to have themincreased!"

Gorju bit his moustache. "However, with the organisation of labour----"

"Then the government will be the master!"

Some of those around murmured:

"No, no! no more masters!"

Gorju got angry. "No matter! Workers should be supplied with capital, orrather credit should be established. "

"In what way?"

"Ah! I don't know; but credit ought to be established. "

"We've had enough of that, " said the machinist. "They are only plaguingus, these farce-actors!"

And he climbed up the steps, declaring that he would break open thedoor. 

There he was met by Placquevent, with his right knee bent and his fistsclenched:

"Advance one inch further!"

The machinist recoiled. The shouting of the mob reached the chamber. Allarose with the desire to run away. The help from Falaise had notarrived. They bewailed the count's absence. Marescot kept twisting apen; Père Coulon groaned; Heurtaux lashed himself into a fury to makethem send for the gendarmes. 

"Command them to come!" said Foureau. 

"I have no authority. "

The noise, however, redoubled. The whole green was covered with people, and they were all staring at the first story of the building when, atthe window in the middle, under the clock, Pécuchet made his appearance. 

He had ingeniously gone up by the back-stairs, and, wishing to be likeLamartine, he began a harangue to the populace:

"Citizens!----"

But his cap, his nose, his frock-coat, his entire personality lackeddistinction. 

The man in the knitted waistcoat asked him:

"Are you a workman?"

"No. "

"A master, then?"

"Nor that either. "

"Well, take yourself off, then. "

"Why?" returned Pécuchet, haughtily. 

And the next moment he disappeared, in the machinist's clutch, into therecess of the window. 

Gorju came to his assistance. "Let him alone! He's a decent fellow. "They clenched. 

The door flew open, and Marescot, on the threshold, announced thedecision of the council. Hurel had suggested his doing so. 

The road from Tournebu would have a branch road in the direction ofAngleville and leading towards the château of Faverges. 

It was a sacrifice which the commune took upon itself in the interest ofthe working-men. 

They dispersed. 

When Bouvard and Pécuchet re-entered their house, women's voices fellupon their ears. The servants and Madame Bordin were breaking intoexclamations, the widow's screams being the loudest; and at sight ofthem she cried:

"Ha! this is very fortunate! I have been waiting for you for the lastthree hours! My poor garden has not a single tulip left! Filtheverywhere on the grass! No way of getting rid of him!"

"Who is it?"

"Père Gouy. "

He had come with a cartload of manure, and had scattered it pell-mellover the grass. 

"He is now digging it up. Hurry on and make him stop. "

"I am going with you, " said Bouvard. 

At the bottom of the steps outside, a horse in the shafts of a dung-cartwas gnawing at a bunch of oleanders. The wheels, in grazing the flowerborders, had bruised the box trees, broken a rhododendron, knocked downthe dahlias; and clods of black muck, like molehills, embossed the greensward. Gouy was vigorously digging it up. 

One day Madame Bordin had carelessly said to him that she would like tohave it turned up. He set about the job, and, in spite of her orders todesist, went on with it. This was the way that he interpreted the rightto work, Gorju's talk having turned his brain. 

He went away only after violent threats from Bouvard. 

Madame Bordin, by way of compensation, did not pay for the manuallabour, and kept the manure. She was wise: the doctor's wife, and eventhe notary's, though of higher social position, respected her for it. 

The charity workshops lasted a week. No trouble occurred. Gorju left theneighbourhood. 

Meanwhile, the National Guard was always on foot: on Sunday, a review;military promenades, occasionally; and, every night, patrols. Theydisturbed the village. They rang the bells of houses for fun; they madetheir way into the bedrooms where married couples were snoring on thesame bolster; then they uttered broad jokes, and the husband, rising, would go and get them a glass each. Afterwards, they would return to theguard-house to play a hundred of dominoes, would consume a quantity ofcider there, and eat cheese, while the sentinel, worn out, would keepopening the door every other minute. There was a prevailing absence ofdiscipline, owing to Beljambe's laxity. 

When the days of June came, everyone was in favour of "flying to therelief of Paris"; but Foureau could not leave the mayoral premises, Marescot his office, the doctor his patients, or Girbal his firemen. M. De Faverges was at Cherbourg. Beljambe kept his bed. The captaingrumbled: "They did not want me; so much the worse!"--and Bouvard hadthe wisdom to put restraint on Pécuchet. 

The patrols throughout the country were extended farther. They werepanic-stricken by the shadow of a haystack, or by the forms of branches. On one occasion the entire National Guard turned and ran. In themoonlight they had observed, under an apple tree, a man with a gun, taking aim at them. At another time, on a dark night, the patrol haltingunder the beech trees, heard some one close at hand. 

"Who is there?"

No answer. 

They allowed the person to pursue his course, following him at adistance, for he might have a pistol or a tomahawk; but when they werein the village, within reach of help, the dozen men of the companyrushed together upon him, exclaiming:

"Your papers!" They pulled him about and overwhelmed him with insults. The men at the guard-house had gone out. They dragged him there; and bythe light of the candle that was burning on top of the stove they atlast recognised Gorju. 

A wretched greatcoat of lasting was flapping over his shoulders. Histoes could be seen through the holes in his boots. Scratches and bruisesstained his face with blood. He was fearfully emaciated, and rolled hiseyes about like a wolf. 

Foureau, coming up speedily, questioned him as to how he chanced to beunder the beech trees, what his object was in coming back toChavignolles, and also as to the employment of his time for the past sixweeks. 

"That is no business of yours. I have my liberty. "

Placquevent searched him to find out whether he had cartridges abouthim. 

They were about to imprison him provisionally. 

Bouvard interposed. 

"No use, " replied the mayor; "we know your opinions. "

"Nevertheless----"

"Ha! be careful; I give you warning. Be careful. "

Bouvard persisted no further. 

Gorju then turned towards Pécuchet: "And you, master, have you not aword to say for me?"

Pécuchet hung down his head, as if he had a suspicion against hisinnocence. 

The poor wretch smiled bitterly. 

"I protected you, all the same. "

At daybreak, two gendarmes took him to Falaise. 

He was not tried before a court-martial, but was sentenced by the civiltribunal to three months' imprisonment for the misdemeanour of languagetending towards the destruction of society. From Falaise he wrote to hisformer employers to send him soon a certificate of good life and morals, and as their signature required to be legalised by the mayor or thedeputy, they preferred to ask Marescot to do this little service forthem. 

They were introduced into a dining-room, decorated with dishes of fineold earthenware; a Boule clock occupied the narrowest shelf. On themahogany table, without a cloth, were two napkins, a teapot andfinger-glasses. Madame Marescot crossed the room in a dressing-gown ofblue cashmere. She was a Parisian who was bored with the country. Thenthe notary came in, with his cap in one hand, a newspaper in the other;and at once, in the most polite fashion, he affixed his seal, althoughtheir _protégé_ was a dangerous man. 

"Really, " said Bouvard, "for a few words----"

"But words lead to crimes, my dear sir, give me leave to say. "

"And yet, " said Pécuchet, "what line of demarcation can you lay downbetween innocent and guilty phrases? The thing that just now isprohibited may be subsequently applauded. " And he censured the harshnesswith which the insurgents had been treated. 

Marescot naturally rested his case on the necessity of protectingsociety, the public safety--the supreme law. 

"Pardon me!" said Pécuchet, "the right of a single individual is as muchentitled to respect as those of all, and you have nothing to oppose tohim but force if he turns your axiom upon yourself. "

Instead of replying, Marescot lifted his brows disdainfully. Providedthat he continued to draw up legal documents, and to live among hisplates, in his comfortable little home, injustices of every kind mightpresent themselves without affecting him. Business called him away. Heexcused himself. 

His theory of public safety excited their indignation. The Conservativesnow talked like Robespierre. 

Another matter for astonishment: Cavaignac was flagging; the GardeMobile was exposing itself to suspicion. Ledru-Rollin had ruined himselfeven in Vaucorbeil's estimation. The debates on the Constitutioninterested nobody, and on the 10th of December all the inhabitants ofChavignolles voted for Bonaparte. The six millions of votes madePécuchet grow cold with regard to the people, and Bouvard and heproceeded to study the question of universal suffrage. 

As it belongs to everybody, it cannot possess intelligence. Oneambitious man will always be the leader; the others will follow him likea flock of sheep, the electors not being compelled even to know how toread. This was the reason, in Bouvard's opinion, that there were so manyfrauds at presidential elections. 

"None, " replied Bouvard; "I believe rather in the gullibility of thepeople. Think of all who buy the patent health-restorer, the Dupuytrenpomatum, the Châtelaine's water, etc. Those boobies constitute themajority of the electorate, and we submit to their will. Why cannot anincome of three thousand francs be made out of rabbits? Because theovercrowding of them is a cause of death. In the same way, through themere fact of its being a multitude, the germs of stupidity contained init are developed, and thence result consequences that are incalculable. "

"Your scepticism frightens me, " said Pécuchet. 

At a later period, in the spring, they met M. De Faverges, who apprisedthem of the expedition to Rome. We should not attack the Italians, butwe should require guaranties. Otherwise our influence would bedestroyed. Nothing would be more legitimate than this intervention. 

Bouvard opened his eyes wide. "On the subject of Poland, you expressed acontrary opinion. "

"It is no longer the same thing. " It was now a question of the Pope. 

And M. De Faverges, when he said, "We wish, " "We shall do, " "Wecalculate clearly, " represented a group. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet were disgusted with the minority quite as much aswith the majority. The common people, in short, were just the same asthe aristocracy. 

The right of intervention appeared dubious to them. They sought for itsprinciples in Calvo, Martens, Vattel; and Bouvard's conclusion was this:

"There may be intervention to restore a prince to the throne, toemancipate a people, or, for the sake of precaution, in view of a publicdanger. In other cases it is an outrage on the rights of others, anabuse of force, a piece of hypocritical violence. "

"And yet, " said Pécuchet, "peoples have a solidarity as well as men. "

"Perhaps so. " And Bouvard sank into a reverie. 

The expedition to Rome soon began. 

At home, through hatred of revolutionary ideas, the leaders of theParisian middle class got two printing-offices sacked. The great partyof order was formed. 

It had for its chiefs in the arrondissement the count, Foureau, Marescot, and the curé. Every day, about four o'clock, they walked fromone end of the green to the other, and talked over the events of theday. The principal business was the distribution of pamphlets. Thetitles did not lack attractiveness: "God will be pleased with it"; "Thesharing"; "Let us get out of the mess"; "Where are we going?" The finestthings among them were the dialogues in the style of villagers, withoaths and bad French, to elevate the mental faculties of the peasants. By a new law, the hawking of pamphlets would be in the hands of theprefects; and they had just crammed Proudhon into St. Pélagie--gigantictriumph!

The trees of liberty were generally torn down. Chavignolles obeyedorders. Bouvard saw with his own eyes the fragments of his poplar on awheelbarrow. They helped to warm the gendarmes, and the stump wasoffered to the curé, who had blessed it. What a mockery!

The schoolmaster did not hide his way of thinking. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet congratulated him on it one day as they werepassing in front of his door. Next day he presented himself at theirresidence. 

At the end of the week they returned his visit. 

The day was declining. The brats had just gone home, and theschoolmaster, in half-sleeves, was sweeping the yard. His wife, with aneckerchief tied round her head, was suckling a baby. A little girl washiding herself behind her petticoat; a hideous-looking child was playingon the ground at her feet. The water from the washing she had been doingin the kitchen was flowing to the lower end of the house. 

"You see, " said the schoolmaster, "how the government treats us. "

And forthwith he began finding fault with capital as an infamous thing. It was necessary to democratise it, to enfranchise matter. 

"I ask for nothing better, " said Pécuchet. 

At least, they ought to have recognised the right to assistance. 

"One more right!" said Bouvard. 

No matter! The provisional government had acted in a flabby fashion bynot ordaining fraternity. 

"Then try to establish it. "

As there was no longer daylight, Petit rudely ordered his wife to carrya candle to his study. 

The lithograph portraits of the orators of the Left were fastened withpins to the plaster walls. A bookshelf stood above a deal writing-desk. There were a chair, stool, and an old soap-box for persons to sit downupon. He made a show of laughing. But want had laid its traces on hischeeks, and his narrow temples indicated the stubbornness of a ram, anintractable pride. He never would yield. 

"Besides, see what sustains me!"

It was a pile of newspapers on a shelf, and in feverish phrases heexplained the articles of his faith: disarmament of troops, abolition ofthe magistracy, equality of salaries, a levelling process by which thegolden age was to be brought about under the form of the Republic, witha dictator at its head--a fellow that would carry this out for usbriskly!

Then he reached for a bottle of aniseed cordial and three glasses, inorder to propose the toast of the hero, the immortal victim, the greatMaximilian. 

On the threshold appeared the black cassock of the priest. Havingsaluted those present in an animated fashion, he addressed theschoolmaster, speaking almost in a whisper:

"Our business about St. Joseph, what stage is it at?"

"They have given nothing, " replied the schoolmaster. 

"That is your fault!"

"I have done what I could. "

"Ha! really?"

Bouvard and Pécuchet discreetly rose. Petit made them sit down again, and addressing the curé:

"Is that all?"

The Abbé Jeufroy hesitated. Then, with a smile which tempered hisreprimand:

"It is supposed that you are rather negligent about sacred history. "

"Oh, sacred history!" interrupted Bouvard. 

"What fault have you to find with it, sir?"

"I--none. Only there are perhaps more useful things to be learned thanthe anecdote of Jonas and the story of the kings of Israel. "

"You are free to do as you please, " replied the priest drily. 

And without regard for the strangers, or on account of their presence:

"The catechism hour is too short. "

Petit shrugged his shoulders. 

"Mind! You will lose your boarders!"

The ten francs a month for these pupils formed the best part of hisremuneration. But the cassock exasperated him. 

"So much the worse; take your revenge!"

"A man of my character does not revenge himself, " said the priest, without being moved. "Only I would remind you that the law of thefifteenth of March assigns us to the superintendence of primaryeducation. "

"Ah! I know that well, " cried the schoolmaster. "It is given even tocolonels of gendarmes. Why not to the rural guard? That would completethe thing!"

And he sank upon the stool, biting his fingers, repressing his rage, stifled by the feeling of his own powerlessness. 

The priest touched him lightly on the shoulder. 

"I did not intend to annoy you, my friend. Keep yourself quiet. Be alittle reasonable. Here is Easter close at hand; I hope you will showan example by going to communion along with the others. "

"That is too much! I--I submit to such absurdities!"

At this blasphemy the curé turned pale, his eyeballs gleamed, his jawquivered. 

"Silence, unhappy man! silence! And it is his wife who looks after thechurch linen!"

"Well, what then? What has she done to you?"

"She always stays away from mass. Like yourself, for that matter!"

"Oh! a schoolmaster is not sent away for a thing of that kind!"

"He can be removed. "

The priest said no more. 

He was at the end of the room, in the shadow. 

Petit was thinking, with his head resting on his chest. 

They would arrive at the other end of France, their last sou eaten up bythe journey, and they would again find down there, under differentnames, the same curé, the same superintendent, the same prefect--all, even to the minister, were like links in a chain dragging him down. Hehad already had one warning--others would follow. After that?--and in akind of hallucination he saw himself walking along a high-road, a bag onhis back, those whom he loved by his side, and his hand held out towardsa post-chaise. 

At that moment his wife was seized with a fit of coughing in thekitchen, the new-born infant began to squeal, and the boy was crying. 

"Poor children!" said the priest in a softened voice. 

The father thereupon broke into sobs:

"Yes, yes! whatever you require!"

"I count upon it, " replied the curé. 

And, having made the customary bow:

"Well, good evening to you, gentlemen. "

The schoolmaster remained with his face in his hands. 

He pushed away Bouvard. "No! let me alone. I feel as if I'd like to die. I am an unfortunate man. "

The two friends, when they reached their own house, congratulatedthemselves on their independence. The power of the clergy terrifiedthem. 

It was now employed for the purpose of strengthening public order. TheRepublic was about to disappear. 

Three millions of electors found themselves excluded from universalsuffrage. The security required from newspapers was raised; the presscensorship was re-established. It was even suggested that it should beput in force against the fiction columns. Classical philosophy wasconsidered dangerous. The commercial classes preached the dogma ofmaterial interests; and the populace seemed satisfied. 

The country-people came back to their old masters. 

M. De Faverges, who had estates in Eure, was declared a member of theLegislative Assembly, and his re-election for the general council ofCalvados was certain beforehand. 

He thought proper to invite the leading personages in the district to aluncheon. 

The vestibule in which three servants were waiting to take theirovercoats, the billiard-room and the pair of drawing-rooms, the plantsin china vases, the bronzes on the mantel-shelves, the gold wands onthe panelled walls, the heavy curtains, the wide armchairs--this displayof luxury struck them at once as a mark of courtesy towards them; and, when they entered the dining-room, at the sight of the table laden withmeats in silver dishes, together with the row of glasses before eachplate, the side-dishes here and there, and a salmon in the middle, everyface brightened up. 

The party numbered seventeen, including two sturdy agriculturists, thesub-prefect of Bayeux and one person from Cherbourg. M. De Favergesbegged his guests to excuse the countess, who was absent owing to aheadache; and, after some commendations of the pears and grapes, whichfilled four baskets at the corners, he asked about the great news--theproject of a descent on England by Changarnier. 

Heurtaux desired it as a soldier, the curé through hatred of theProtestants, and Foureau in the interests of commerce. 

"You are giving expression, " said Pécuchet, "to the sentiments of theMiddle Ages. "

"The Middle Ages had their good side, " returned Marescot. "For instance, our cathedrals. "

"However, sir, the abuses----"

"No matter--the Revolution would not have come. "

"Ha! the Revolution--there's the misfortune, " said the ecclesiastic witha sigh. 

"But everyone contributed towards it, and (excuse me, Monsieur le Comte)the nobles themselves by their alliance with the philosophers. "

"What is it you want? Louis XVIII. Legalised spoliation. Since that timethe parliamentary system is sapping the foundations. "

A joint of roast beef made its appearance, and for some minutes nothingwas heard save the sounds made by forks and moving jaws, and by theservants crossing the floor with the two words on their lips, which theyrepeated continually:

"Madeira! Sauterne!"

The conversation was resumed by the gentleman from Cherbourg:

"How were they to stop on the slope of an abyss?"

"Amongst the Athenians, " said Marescot--"amongst the Athenians, towardswhom we bear certain resemblances, Solon checkmated the democrats byraising the electoral census. "

"It would be better, " said Hurel, "to suppress the Chamber: everydisorder comes from Paris. "

"Let us decentralise, " said the notary. 

"On a large scale, " added the count. 

In Foureau's opinion, the communal authorities should have absolutecontrol, even to the extent of prohibiting travellers from using theirroads, if they thought fit. 

And whilst the dishes followed one another--fowl with gravy, lobsters, mushrooms, salads, roast larks--many topics were handled: the bestsystem of taxation, the advantages of the large system of landcultivation, the abolition of the death penalty. The sub-prefect did notforget to cite that charming witticism of a clever man: "Let Messieursthe Assassins begin!"

Bouvard was astonished at the contrast between the surroundings and theremarks that reached his ears; for one would think that the languageused should always harmonise with the environment, and that loftyceilings should be made for great thoughts. Nevertheless, he wasflushed at dessert, and saw the fruit-dishes as if through a fog. Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Malaga were amongst the wines sent round. M. DeFaverges, who knew the people he had to deal with, made the champagneflow. The guests, touching glasses, drank to his success at theelection; and more than three hours elapsed before they passed out intothe smoking-room, where coffee was served. 

A caricature from _Charivari_ was trailing on the floor between somecopies of the _Univers_. It represented a citizen the skirts of whosefrock-coat allowed a tail to be seen with an eye at the end of it. Marescot explained it amid much laughter. 

They swallowed their liqueurs, and the ashes of their cigars fell on thepaddings of the furniture. 

The abbé, desirous to convince Girbal, began an attack on Voltaire. Coulon fell asleep. M. De Faverges avowed his devotion to Chambord. 

"The bees furnish an argument for monarchy. "

"But the ants for the Republic. " However, the doctor adhered to it nolonger. 

"You are right, " said the sub-prefect; "the form of government matterslittle. "

"With liberty, " suggested Pécuchet. 

"An honest man has no need of it, " replied Foureau. "I make no speeches, for my part. I am not a journalist. And I tell you that France requiresto be governed with a rod of iron. "

All called for a deliverer. As they were going out, Bouvard and Pécuchetheard M. De Faverges saying to the Abbé Jeufroy:

"We must re-establish obedience. Authority perishes if it be made thesubject of discussion. The Divine Right--there is nothing but that!"

"Exactly, Monsieur le Comte. "

The pale rays of an October sun were lengthening out behind the woods. Amoist wind was blowing, and as they walked over the dead leaves theybreathed like men who had just been set free. 

All that they had not found the opportunity of saying escaped from themin exclamations:

"What idiots!"

"What baseness!"

"How is it possible to imagine such obstinacy!"

"In the first place, what is the meaning of the Divine Right?"

Dumouchel's friend, that professor who had supplied them withinstruction on the subject of æsthetics, replied to their inquiries in alearned letter. 

"The theory of Divine Right was formulated in the reign of Charles II. By the Englishman Filmer. Here it is:

"'The Creator gave the first man dominion over the world. It wastransmitted to his descendants, and the power of the king emanates fromGod. '

"'He is His image, ' writes Bossuet. 'The paternal empire accustoms us tothe domination of one alone. Kings have been made after the model ofparents. '

"Locke refuted this doctrine: 'The paternal power is distinguished fromthe monarchic, every subject having the same right over his childrenthat the monarch has over his own. Royalty exists only through thepopular choice; and even the election was recalled at the ceremony ofcoronation, in which two bishops, pointing towards the king, asked bothnobles and peasants whether they accepted him as such. '

"Therefore, authority comes from the people. 

"'They have the right to do what they like, ' says Helvetius; to 'changetheir constitution, ' says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice, 'according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; andSt. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from atyrant. ' 'They are even, ' says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right. '"

Astonished at the axiom, they took up Rousseau's _Contrat Social_. Pécuchet went through to the end. Then closing his eyes, and throwingback his head, he made an analysis of it. 

"A convention is assumed whereby the individual gives up his liberty. 

"The people at the same time undertook to protect him against theinequalities of nature, and made him owner of the things he had in hispossession. "

"Where is the proof of the contract?"

"Nowhere! And the community does not offer any guaranty. The citizensoccupy themselves exclusively with politics. But as callings arenecessary, Rousseau is in favour of slavery. 'The sciences havedestroyed the human race. The theatre is corrupting, money fatal, andthe state ought to impose a religion under the penalty of death. '"

"What!" said they, "here is the pontiff of democracy. "

All the champions of reform had copied him; and they procured the_Examen du Socialisme_, by Morant. 

The first chapter explained the doctrine of Saint-Simon. 

At the top the Father, at the same time Pope and Emperor. Abolition ofinheritance; all property movable and immovable forming a social fund, which should be worked on a hierarchical basis. The manufacturers are togovern the public fortune. But there is nothing to be afraid of; theywill have as a leader the "one who loves the most. "

One thing is lacking: woman. On the advent of woman depends thesalvation of the world. 

"I do not understand. "

"Nor I. "

And they turned to Fourierism:

"'All misfortunes come from constraint. Let the attraction be free, andharmony will be established. 

"'In our souls are shut up a dozen leading passions: five egoistical, four animistic, and three distributive. The first class have referenceto individuals, the second to groups, the last to groups of groups, orseries, of which the whole forms a phalanx, a society of eighteenhundred persons dwelling in a palace. Every morning carriages convey theworkers into the country, and bring them back in the evening. Standardsare carried, festivities are held, cakes are eaten. Every woman, if shedesires it, can have three men--the husband, the lover, and theprocreator. For celibates, the Bayadère system is established----'"

"That fits me!" said Bouvard. And he lost himself in dreams of theharmonious world. 

"'By the restoration of climatures, the earth will become morebeautiful; by the crossing of races, human life will become longer. Theclouds will be guided as the thunderbolt is now: it will rain at nightin the cities so that they will be clean. Ships will cross the polarseas, thawed beneath the Aurora Borealis. For everything is produced bythe conjunction of two fluids, male and female, gushing out from thepoles, and the northern lights are a symptom of the blending of theplanets--a prolific emission. '"

"This is beyond me!" said Pécuchet. 

After Saint-Simon and Fourier the problem resolves itself into questionsof wages. 

Louis Blanc, in the interests of the working class, wishes to abolishexternal commerce; Lafarelle to tax machinery; another to take off thedrink duties, to restore trade wardenships, or to distribute soups. 

Proudhon conceives the idea of a uniform tariff, and claims for thestate the monopoly of sugar. 

"These socialists, " said Bouvard, "always call for tyranny. "

"Oh, no!"

"Yes, indeed!"

"You are absurd!"

"Well, I am shocked at you!"

They sent for the works of which they had only summaries. Bouvard noteda number of passages, and, pointing them out, said:

"Read for yourself. They offer as examples to us the Essenes, theMoravian Brethren, the Jesuits of Paraguay, and even the government ofprisons. "

"'Amongst the Icarians breakfast was over in twenty minutes; women weredelivered at the hospitals. As for books, it was forbidden to print themwithout the authorisation of the Republic. '"

"But Cabet is an idiot. "

"Here, now, we have from Saint-Simon: 'The publicists should submittheir works to a committee of manufacturers. '

"And from Pierre Leroux: 'The law will compel the citizens to listen toan orator. '

"And from Auguste Comte: 'The priests will educate the youth, willexercise supervision over literary works, and will reserve to themselvesthe power of regulating procreation. '"

These quotations troubled Pécuchet. In the evening, at dinner, hereplied:

"I admit that there are absurdities in the works of the inventors ofUtopias; nevertheless they deserve our sympathy. The hideousness of theworld tormented them, and, in order to make it beautiful, they enduredeverything. Recall to mind More decapitated, Campanella put seven timesto the torture, Buonarotti with a chain round his neck, Saint-Simondying of want; many others. They might have lived in peace; but no! theymarched on their way with their heads towards the sky, like heroes. "

"Do you believe, " said Bouvard, "that the world will change, thanks tothe theories of some particular gentleman?"

"What does it matter?" said Pécuchet; "it is time to cease stagnating inselfishness. Let us look out for the best system. "

"Then you expect to find it?"

"Certainly. "

"You?"

And, in the fit of laughter with which Bouvard was seized, his shouldersand stomach kept shaking in harmony. Redder than the jams before them, with his napkin under his armpits, he kept repeating, "Ha! ha! ha!" inan irritating fashion. 

Pécuchet left the room, slamming the door after him. 

Germaine went all over the house to call him, and he was found at theend of his own apartment in an easy chair, without fire or candle, hiscap drawn over his eyes. He was not unwell, but had given himself up tohis own broodings. 

When the quarrel was over they recognised that a foundation was neededfor their studies--political economy. 

They inquired into supply and demand, capital and rent, importation andprohibition. 

One night Pécuchet was awakened by the creaking of a boot in thecorridor. The evening before, according to custom, he had himself drawnall the bolts; and he called out to Bouvard, who was fast asleep. 

They remained motionless under the coverlets. The noise was notrepeated. 

The servants, on being questioned, said they had heard nothing. 

But, while walking through the garden, they remarked in the middle of aflower-bed, near the gateway, the imprint of a boot-sole, and two of thesticks used as supports for the trees were broken. Evidently some onehad climbed over. 

It was necessary to give notice of it to the rural guard. 

As he was not at the municipal building, Pécuchet thought of going tothe grocer's shop. 

Who should they see in the back shop, beside Placquevent, in the midstof the topers, but Gorju--Gorju, rigged out like a well-to-do citizen, entertaining the company!

This meeting was taken as a matter of course. 

So on they lapsed into a discussion about progress. 

Bouvard had no doubt it existed in the domain of science. But in that ofliterature it was not so manifest; and if comfort increases, the poeticside of life disappears. 

Pécuchet, in order to bring home conviction on the point, took a pieceof paper: "I trace across here an undulating line. Those who happen totravel over it, whenever it sinks, can no longer see the horizon. Itrises again nevertheless, and, in spite of its windings, they reach thetop. This is an image of progress. "

Madame Bordin entered at this point. 

It was the 3rd of December, 1851. She had the newspaper in her hand. 

They read very quickly, side by side, the news of the appeal to thepeople, the dissolution of the Chamber, and the imprisonment of thedeputies. 

Pécuchet turned pale. Bouvard gazed at the widow. 

"What! have you nothing to say?"

"What do you wish me to do here?" (They had forgotten to offer her aseat. ) "I came here simply out of courtesy towards you, and you arescarcely civil to-day. "

And out she went, disgusted at their want of politeness. 

The astonishing news had struck them dumb. Then they went about thevillage venting their indignation. 

Marescot, whom they found surrounded by a pile of deeds, took adifferent view. The babbling of the Chamber was at an end, thank Heaven!Henceforth they would have a business policy. 

Beljambe knew nothing about the occurrences, and, furthermore, helaughed at them. 

In the market-place they stopped Vaucorbeil. 

The physician had got over all that. "You are very foolish to botheryourselves. "

Foureau passed them by, remarking with a sly air, "The democrats areswamped. "

And the captain, with Girbal's arm in his, exclaimed from a distance, "Long live the Emperor!"

But Petit would be sure to understand them, and Bouvard having tapped ata window-pane, the schoolmaster quitted his class. 

He thought it a good joke to have Thiers in prison. This would avengethe people. 

"Ha! ha! my gentlemen deputies, your turn now!"

The volley of musketry on the boulevards met with the approval of thepeople of Chavignolles. No mercy for the vanquished, no pity for thevictims! Once you revolt, you are a scoundrel!

"Let us be grateful to Providence, " said the curé, "and under Providenceto Louis Bonaparte. He gathers around him the most distinguished men. The Count de Faverges will be made a senator. "

Next day they had a visit from Placquevent. 

"These gentlemen" had talked a great deal. He required a promise fromthem to hold their tongues. 

"Do you wish to know my opinion?" said Pécuchet. "Since the middle classis ferocious and the working-men jealous-minded, whilst the people, after all, accept every tyrant, so long as they are allowed to keeptheir snouts in the mess, Napoleon has done right. Let him gag them, therabble, and exterminate them--this will never be too much for theirhatred of right, their cowardice, their incapacity, and theirblindness. "

Bouvard mused: "Hey! progress! what humbug!" He added: "And politics, anice heap of dirt!"

"It is not a science, " returned Pécuchet. "The military art is better:you can tell what will happen--we ought to turn our hands to it. "

"Oh, thanks, " was Bouvard's answer. "I am disgusted with everything. Better for us to sell our barrack, and go in the name of God's thunderamongst the savages. "

"Just as you like. "

Mélie was drawing water out in the yard. 

The wooden pump had a long lever. In order to make it work, she bent herback, so that her blue stockings could be seen as high as the calf ofher legs. Then, with a rapid movement, she raised her right arm, whileshe turned her head a little to one side; and Pécuchet, as he gazed ather, felt quite a new sensation, a charm, a thrill of intense delight. 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VII. 

"UNLUCKY IN LOVE. "

And now the days began to be sad. They studied no longer, fearing lestthey might be disillusioned. The inhabitants of Chavignolles avoidedthem. The newspapers they tolerated gave them no information; and sotheir solitude was unbroken, their time completely unoccupied. 

Sometimes they would open a book, and then shut it again--what was theuse of it? On other days they would be seized with the idea of cleaningup the garden: at the end of a quarter of an hour they would befatigued; or they would set out to have a look at the farm, and comeback disenchanted; or they tried to interest themselves in householdaffairs, with the result of making Germaine break out into lamentations. They gave it up. 

Bouvard wanted to draw up a catalogue for the museum, and declared theircurios stupid. 

Pécuchet borrowed Langlois' duck-gun to shoot larks with; the weaponburst at the first shot, and was near killing him. 

Then they lived in the midst of that rural solitude so depressing whenthe grey sky covers in its monotony a heart without hope. The step of aman in wooden shoes is heard as he steals along by the wall, orperchance it is the rain dripping from the roof to the ground. From timeto time a dead leaf just grazes one of the windows, then whirls aboutand flies away. The indistinct echoes of some funeral bell are borne tothe ear by the wind. From a corner of the stable comes the lowing of acow. They yawned in each other's faces, consulted the almanac, looked atthe clock, waited for meal-time; and the horizon was ever thesame--fields in front, the church to the right, a screen of poplars tothe left, their tops swaying incessantly in the hazy atmosphere with amelancholy air. 

Habits which they formerly tolerated now gave them annoyance. Pécuchetbecame quite a bore from his mania for putting his handkerchief on thetablecloth. Bouvard never gave up his pipe, and would keep twistinghimself about while he was talking. They started disputes about thedishes, or about the quality of the butter; and while they were chattingface to face each was thinking of different things. 

A certain occurrence had upset Pécuchet's mind. 

Two days after the riot at Chavignolles, while he was airing hispolitical grievance, he had reached a road covered with tufted elms, andheard behind his back a voice exclaiming, "Stop!"

It was Madame Castillon. She was rushing across from the opposite sidewithout perceiving him. 

A man who was walking along in front of her turned round. It was Gorju;and they met some six feet away from Pécuchet, the row of treesseparating them from him. 

"Is it true, " said she, "you are going to fight?"

Pécuchet slipped behind the ditch to listen. 

"Well, yes, " replied Gorju; "I am going to fight. What has that to dowith you?"

"He asks _me_ such a question!" cried she, flinging her arms about him. "But, if you are killed, my love! Oh! remain!"

And her blue eyes appealed to him, still more than her words. 

"Let me alone. I have to go. "

There was an angry sneer on her face. 

"The other has permitted it, eh?"

"Don't speak of her. "

He raised his fist. 

"No, dear; no. I don't say anything. " And big tears trickled down hercheeks as far as the frilling of her collarette. 

It was midday. The sun shone down upon the fields covered with yellowgrain. Far in the distance carriage-wheels softly slipped along theroad. There was a torpor in the air--not a bird's cry, not an insect'shum. Gorju cut himself a switch and scraped off the bark. 

Madame Castillon did not raise her head again. She, poor woman, wasthinking of her vain sacrifices for him, the debts she had paid for him, her future liabilities, and her lost reputation. Instead of complaining, she recalled for him the first days of their love, when she used to goevery night to meet him in the barn, so that her husband on oneoccasion, fancying it was a thief, fired a pistol-shot through thewindow. The bullet was in the wall still. "From the moment I first knewyou, you seemed to me as handsome as a prince. I love your eyes, yourvoice, your walk, your smell, " and in a lower tone she added: "and asfor your person, I am fairly crazy about it. "

He listened with a smile of gratified vanity. 

She clasped him with both hands round the waist, her head bent as if inadoration. 

"My dear heart! my dear love! my soul! my life! Come! speak! What is ityou want? Is it money? We'll get it. I was in the wrong. I annoyed you. Forgive me; and order clothes from the tailor, drink champagne--enjoyyourself. I will allow everything--everything. "

She murmured with a supreme effort, "Even her--as long as you come backto me. "

He just touched her lips with his, drawing one arm around her to preventher from falling; and she kept murmuring, "Dear heart! dear love! howhandsome you are! My God! how handsome you are!"

Pécuchet, without moving an inch, his chin just touching the top of theditch, stared at them in breathless astonishment. 

"Come, no swooning, " said Gorju. "You'll only have me missing the coach. A glorious bit of devilment is getting ready, and I'm in the swim; sojust give me ten sous to stand the conductor a drink. "

She took five francs out of her purse. "You will soon give them back tome. Have a little patience. He has been a good while paralysed. Think ofthat! And, if you liked, we could go to the chapel of Croix-Janval, andthere, my love, I would swear before the Blessed Virgin to marry you assoon as he is dead. "

"Ah! he'll never die--that husband of yours. "

Gorju had turned on his heel. She caught hold of him again, and clingingto his shoulders:

"Let me go with you. I will be your servant. You want some one. Butdon't go away! don't leave me! Death rather! Kill me!"

She crawled towards him on her knees, trying to seize his hands in orderto kiss them. Her cap fell off, then her comb, and her hair gotdishevelled. It was turning white around her ears, and, as she looked upat him, sobbing bitterly, with red eyes and swollen lips, he got quiteexasperated, and pushed her back. 

"Be off, old woman! Good evening. "

When she had got up, she tore off the gold cross that hung round herneck, and flinging it at him, cried:

"There, you ruffian!"

Gorju went off, lashing the leaves of the trees with his switch. 

Madame Castillon ceased weeping. With fallen jaw and tear-dimmed eyesshe stood motionless, petrified with despair; no longer a being, but athing in ruins. 

What he had just chanced upon was for Pécuchet like the discovery of anew world--a world in which there were dazzling splendours, wildblossomings, oceans, tempests, treasures, and abysses of infinite depth. There was something about it that excited terror; but what of that? Hedreamed of love, desired to feel it as she felt it, to inspire it as heinspired it. 

However, he execrated Gorju, and could hardly keep from givinginformation about him at the guard-house. 

Pécuchet was mortified by the slim waist, the regular curls, and thesmooth beard of Madame Castillon's lover, as well as by the air of aconquering hero which the fellow assumed, while his own hair was pastedto his skull like a soaked wig, his torso wrapped in a greatcoatresembled a bolster, two of his front teeth were out, and hisphysiognomy had a harsh expression. He thought that Heaven had dealtunkindly with him, and felt that he was one of the disinherited;moreover, his friend no longer cared for him. 

Bouvard deserted him every evening. Since his wife was dead, there wasnothing to prevent him from taking another, who, by this time, might becoddling him up and looking after his house. And now he was getting tooold to think of it. 

But Bouvard examined himself in the glass. His cheeks had kept theircolour; his hair curled just the same as of yore; not a tooth was loose;and, at the idea that he had still the power to please, he felt a returnof youthfulness. Madame Bordin rose in his memory. She had made advancesto him, first on the occasion of the burning of the stacks, next at thedinner which they gave, then in the museum at the recital, and lastly, without resenting any want of attention on his part, she had calledthree Sundays in succession. He paid her a return visit, and repeatedit, making up his mind to woo and win her. 

Since the day when Pécuchet had watched the little servant-maid drawingwater, he had frequently talked to her, and whether she was sweeping thecorridor or spreading out the linen, or taking up the saucepans, hecould never grow tired of looking at her--surprised himself at hisemotions, as in the days of adolescence. He had fevers and languors onaccount of her, and he was stung by the picture left in his memory ofMadame Castillon straining Gorju to her breast. 

[Illustration: HE WAS ABOUT TO CLASP HER IN HIS ARMS]

He questioned Bouvard as to the way libertines set about seducing women. 

"They make them presents; they bring them to restaurants for supper. "

"Very good. But after that?"

"Some of them pretend to faint, in order that you may carry them over toa sofa; others let their handkerchiefs fall on the ground. The best ofthem plainly make an appointment with you. " And Bouvard launched forthinto descriptions which inflamed Pécuchet's imagination, like engravingsof voluptuous scenes. 

"The first rule is not to believe what they say. I have known those who, under the appearance of saints, were regular Messalinas. Above all, youmust be bold. "

But boldness cannot be had to order. 

From day to day Pécuchet put off his determination, and besides he wasintimidated by the presence of Germaine. 

Hoping that she would ask to have her wages paid, he exacted additionalwork from her, took notice every time she got tipsy, referred in a loudvoice to her want of cleanliness, her quarrelsomeness, and did it all soeffectively that she had to go. 

Then Pécuchet was free! With what impatience he waited for Bouvard to goout! What a throbbing of the heart he felt as soon as the door closed!

Mélie was working at a round table near the window by the light of acandle; from time to time she broke the threads with her teeth, then shehalf-closed her eyes while adjusting it in the slit of the needle. Atfirst he asked her what kind of men she liked. Was it, for instance, Bouvard's style?

"Oh, no. " She preferred thin men. 

He ventured to ask her if she ever had had any lovers. 

"Never. "

Then, drawing closer to her, he surveyed her piquant nose, her smallmouth, her charmingly-rounded figure. He paid her some compliments, andexhorted her to prudence. 

In bending over her he got a glimpse, under her corsage, of her whiteskin, from which emanated a warm odour that made his cheeks tingle. Oneevening he touched with his lips the wanton hairs at the back of herneck, and he felt shaken even to the marrow of his bones. Another timehe kissed her on the chin, and had to restrain himself from putting histeeth in her flesh, so savoury was it. She returned his kiss. Theapartment whirled round; he no longer saw anything. 

He made her a present of a pair of lady's boots, and often treated herto a glass of aniseed cordial. 

To save her trouble he rose early, chopped up the wood, lighted thefire, and was so attentive as to clean Bouvard's shoes. 

Mélie did not faint or let her handkerchief fall, and Pécuchet did notknow what to do, his passion increasing through the fear of satisfyingit. 

Bouvard was assiduously paying his addresses to Madame Bordin. She usedto receive him rather cramped in her gown of shot silk, which creakedlike a horse's harness, all the while fingering her long gold chain tokeep herself in countenance. 

Their conversations turned on the people of Chavignolles or on "the deardeparted, " who had been an usher at Livarot. 

Then she inquired about Bouvard's past, curious to know something of his"youthful freaks, " the way in which he had fallen heir to his fortune, and the interests by which he was bound to Pécuchet. 

He admired the appearance of her house, and when he came to dinner therewas struck by the neatness with which it was served and the excellentfare placed on the table. A succession of dishes of the most savourydescription, which intermingled at regular intervals with a bottle ofold Pomard, brought them to the dessert, at which they remained a longtime sipping their coffee; and, with dilating nostrils, Madame Bordindipped into her saucer her thick lip, lightly shaded with a black down. 

One day she appeared in a low dress. Her shoulders fascinated Bouvard. As he sat in a little chair before her, he began to pass his hands alongher arms. The widow seemed offended. He did not repeat this attention, but he pictured to himself those ample curves, so marvellously smoothand fine. 

Any evening when he felt dissatisfied with Mélie's cooking, it gave himpleasure to enter Madame Bordin's drawing-room. It was there he shouldhave lived. 

The globe of the lamp, covered with a red shade, shed a tranquil light. She was seated close to the fire, and his foot touched the hem of herskirt. 

After a few opening words the conversation flagged. 

However, she kept gazing at him, with half-closed lids, in a languidfashion, but unbending withal. 

Bouvard could not stand it any longer, and, sinking on his knees to thefloor, he stammered:

"I love you! Marry me!"

Madame Bordin drew a strong breath; then, with an ingenuous air, said hewas jesting; no doubt he was trying to have a laugh at her expense--itwas not fair. This declaration stunned her. 

Bouvard returned that she did not require anyone's consent. "What's tohinder you? Is it the trousseau? Our linen has the same mark, a B--we'llunite our capital letters!"

The idea caught her fancy. But a more important matter prevented herfrom arriving at a decision before the end of the month. And Bouvardgroaned. 

She had the politeness to accompany him to the gate, escorted byMarianne, who carried a lantern. 

The two friends kept their love affairs hidden from each other. 

Pécuchet counted on always cloaking his intrigue with the servant-maid. If Bouvard made any opposition to it, he could carry her off to otherplaces, even though it were to Algeria, where living is not so dear. Buthe rarely indulged in such speculations, full as he was of his passion, without thinking of the consequences. 

Bouvard conceived the idea of converting the museum into the bridalchamber, unless Pécuchet objected, in which case he might take up hisresidence at his wife's house. 

One afternoon in the following week--it was in her garden; the buds werejust opening, and between the clouds there were great blue spaces--shestopped to gather some violets, and said as she offered them to him:

"Salute Madame Bouvard!"

"What! Is it true?"

"Perfectly true. "

He was about to clasp her in his arms. She kept him back. "What a man!"Then, growing serious, she warned him that she would shortly be askinghim for a favour. 

"'Tis granted. "

They fixed the following Thursday for the formality of signing themarriage contract. 

Nobody should know anything about it up to the last moment. 

"Agreed. "

And off he went, looking up towards the sky, nimble as a roebuck. 

Pécuchet on the morning of the same day said in his own mind that hewould die if he did not obtain the favours of his little maid, and hefollowed her into the cellar, hoping the darkness would give himcourage. 

She tried to go away several times, but he detained her in order tocount the bottles, to choose laths, or to look into the bottoms ofcasks--and this occupied a considerable time. 

She stood facing him under the light that penetrated through anair-hole, with her eyes cast down, and the corner of her mouth slightlyraised. 

"Do you love me?" said Pécuchet abruptly. 

"Yes, I do love you. "

"Well, then prove it to me. "

And throwing his left arm around her, he embraced her with ardour. 

"You're going to do me some harm. "

"No, my little angel. Don't be afraid. "

"If Monsieur Bouvard----"

"I'll tell him nothing. Make your mind easy. "

There was a heap of faggots behind them. She sank upon them, and hid herface under one arm;--and another man would have understood that she wasno novice. 

Bouvard arrived soon for dinner. 

The meal passed in silence, each of them being afraid of betrayinghimself, while Mélie attended them with her usual impassiveness. 

Pécuchet turned away his eyes to avoid hers; and Bouvard, his gazeresting on the walls, pondered meanwhile on his projected improvements. 

Eight days after he came back in a towering rage. 

"The damned traitress!"

"Who, pray?"

"Madame Bordin. "

And he related how he had been so infatuated as to offer to make her hiswife, but all had come to an end a quarter of an hour since atMarescot's office. She wished to have for her marriage portion theEcalles meadow, which he could not dispose of, having partly retainedit, like the farm, with the money of another person. 

"Exactly, " said Pécuchet. 

"I had had the folly to promise her any favour she asked--and this waswhat she was after! I attribute her obstinacy to this; for if she lovedme she would have given way to me. "

The widow, on the contrary, had attacked him in insulting language, andreferred disparagingly to his physique, his big paunch. 

"My paunch! Just imagine for a moment!"

Meanwhile Pécuchet had risen several times, and seemed to be in pain. 

Bouvard asked him what was the matter, and thereupon Pécuchet, havingfirst taken the precaution to shut the door, explained in a hesitatingmanner that he was affected with a certain disease. 

"What! You?"

"I--myself. "

"Oh, my poor fellow! And who is the cause of this?"

Pécuchet became redder than before, and said in a still lower tone:

"It can be only Mélie. "

Bouvard remained stupefied. 

The first thing to do was to send the young woman away. 

She protested with an air of candour. 

Pécuchet's case was, however, serious; but he was ashamed to consult aphysician. 

Bouvard thought of applying to Barberou. 

They gave him particulars about the matter, in order that he mightcommunicate with a doctor who would deal with the case bycorrespondence. 

Barberou set to work with zeal, believing it was Bouvard's own case, andcalling him an old dotard, even though he congratulated him about it. 

"At my age!" said Pécuchet. "Is it not a melancholy thing? But why didshe do this?"

"You pleased her. "

"She ought to have given me warning. "

"Does passion reason?" And Bouvard renewed his complaints about MadameBordin. 

Often had he surprised her before the Ecalles, in Marescot's company, having a gossip with Germaine. So many manoeuvres for a little bit ofland!

"She is avaricious! That's the explanation. "

So they ruminated over their disappointments by the fireside in thebreakfast parlour, Pécuchet swallowing his medicines and Bouvard puffingat his pipe; and they began a discussion about women. 

"Strange want!--or is it a want?" "They drive men to crime--to heroismas well as to brutishness. " "Hell under a petticoat, " "paradise in akiss, " "the turtle's warbling, " "the serpent's windings, " "the cat'sclaws, " "the sea's treachery, " "the moon's changeableness. " Theyrepeated all the commonplaces that have been uttered about the sex. 

It was the desire for women that had suspended their friendship. Afeeling of remorse took possession of them. "No more women. Is not thatso? Let us live without them!" And they embraced each other tenderly. 

There should be a reaction; and Bouvard, when Pécuchet was better, considered that a course of hydropathic treatment would be beneficial. 

Germaine, who had come back since the other servant's departure, carriedthe bathing-tub each morning into the corridor. 

The two worthies, naked as savages, poured over themselves big bucketsof water; they then rushed back to their rooms. They were seen throughthe garden fence, and people were scandalised. 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII. 

NEW DIVERSIONS. 

Satisfied with their regimen, they desired to improve theirconstitutions by gymnastics; and taking up the _Manual of Amoros_, theywent through its atlas. All those young lads squatting, lying back, standing, bending their legs, lifting weights, riding on beams, climbingladders, cutting capers on trapezes--such a display of strength andagility excited their envy. 

However, they were saddened by the splendour of the gymnasium describedin the preface; for they would never be able to get a vestibule for theequipages, a hippodrome for the races, a sweep of water for theswimming, or a "mountain of glory"--an artificial hillock over onehundred feet in height. 

A wooden vaulting-horse with the stuffing would have been expensive:they abandoned the idea. The linden tree, thrown down in the garden, might have been used as a horizontal pole; and, when they were skilfulenough to go over it from one end to the other, in order to have avertical one, they set up a beam of counter-espaliers. Pécuchetclambered to the top; Bouvard slipped off, always fell back, finallygave it up. 

The "orthosomatic sticks" pleased him better; that is to say, twobroomsticks bound by two cords, the first of which passes under thearmpits, and the second over the wrists; and for hours he would remainin this apparatus, with his chin raised, his chest extended, and hiselbows close to his sides. 

For want of dumbbells, the wheelwright turned out four pieces of ashresembling sugar-loaves with necks of bottles at the ends. These shouldbe carried to the right and to the left, to the front and to the back;but being too heavy they fell out of their hands, at the risk ofbruising their legs. No matter! They set their hearts on Persian clubs, and even fearing lest they might break, they rubbed them every eveningwith wax and a piece of cloth. 

Then they looked out for ditches. When they found one suitable for theirpurpose, they rested a long pole in the centre, sprang forward on theleft foot, reached the opposite side, and then repeated the performance. The country being flat, they could be seen at a distance; and thevillagers asked one another what were these extraordinary thingsskipping towards the horizon. 

When autumn arrived they went in for chamber gymnastics, whichcompletely bored them. Why had they not the indoor apparatus orpost-armchair invented in Louis XIV. 's time by the Abbé of St. Pierre?How was it made? Where could they get the information?

Dumouchel did not deign to answer their letter on the subject. 

Then they erected in the bakehouse a brachial weighing-machine. Over twopulleys attached to the ceiling a rope was passed, holding a crossbeamat each end. As soon as they had caught hold of it one pushed againstthe ground with his toes, while the other lowered his arms to a levelwith the floor; the first by his weight would draw towards him thesecond, who, slackening his rope a little, would ascend in his turn. Inless than five minutes their limbs were dripping with perspiration. 

In order to follow the prescriptions of the Manual, they tried to makethemselves ambidextrous, even to the extent of depriving themselves fora time of the use of their right hands. They did more: Amoros points outcertain snatches of verse which ought to be sung during the manoeuvres, and Bouvard and Pécuchet, as they proceeded, kept repeating the hymn No. 9: "A king, a just king is a blessing on earth. "

When they beat their breast-bones: "Friends, the crown and the glory, "etc. 

At the various steps of the race:

 "Let us catch the beast that cowers! Soon the swift stag shall be ours! Yes! the race shall soon be won, Come, run! come, run! come, run!"[17]

And, panting more than hounds, they cheered each other on with thesounds of their voices. 

One side of gymnastics excited their enthusiasm--its employment as ameans of saving life. But they would have required children in order tolearn how to carry them in sacks, and they begged the schoolmaster tofurnish them with some. Petit objected that their families would beannoyed at it. They fell back on the succour of the wounded. Onepretended to have swooned: the other rolled him away in a wheelbarrowwith the utmost precaution. 

As for military escalades, the author extols the ladder of Bois-Rosé, socalled from the captain who surprised Fécamp in former days by climbingup the cliff. 

In accordance with the engraving in the book, they trimmed a rope withlittle sticks and fixed it under the cart-shed. As soon as the firststick is bestridden and the third grasped, the limbs are thrown out inorder that the second, which a moment before was against the chest, might be directly under the thighs. The climber then springs up andgrasps the fourth, and so goes on. 

In spite of prodigious strainings of the hips, they found it impossibleto reach the second step. Perhaps there is less trouble in hanging on tostones with your hands, just as Bonaparte's soldiers did at the attackof Fort Chambray? and to make one capable of such an action, Amoros hasa tower in his establishment. 

The wall in ruins might do as a substitute for it. They attempted theassault with it. But Bouvard, having withdrawn his foot too quickly froma hole, got frightened, and was seized with dizziness. 

Pécuchet blamed their method for it. They had neglected that whichrelates to the phalanxes, so that they should go back to firstprinciples. 

His exhortations were fruitless; and then, in his pride and presumption, he went in for stilts. 

Nature seemed to have destined him for them, for he immediately made useof the great model with flat boards four feet from the ground, and, balanced thereon, he stalked over the garden like a gigantic storktaking exercise. 

Bouvard, at the window, saw him stagger and then flop down all of a heapover the kidney-beans, whose props, giving way as he descended, brokehis fall. 

He was picked up covered with mould, his nostrils bleeding--livid; andhe fancied that he had strained himself. 

Decidedly, gymnastics did not agree with men of their age. Theyabandoned them, did not venture to move about any longer for fear ofaccidents, and they remained the whole day sitting in the museumdreaming of other occupations. 

This change of habits had an influence on Bouvard's health. He becamevery heavy, puffed like a whale after his meals, tried to make himselfthin, ate less, and began to grow weak. 

Pécuchet, in like manner, felt himself "undermined, " had itchings in hisskin and lumps in his throat. 

"This won't do, " said they; "this won't do. "

Bouvard thought of going to select at the inn some bottles of Spanishwine in order to put his bodily machinery in order. 

As he was going out, Marescot's clerk and three men brought fromBeljambe a large walnut table. "Monsieur" was much obliged to him forit. It had been conveyed in perfect order. 

Bouvard in this way learned about the new fashion of table-turning. Hejoked about it with the clerk. 

However, all over Europe, America, Australia and the Indies, millions ofmortals passed their lives in making tables turn; and they discoveredthe way to make prophets of canaries, to give concerts withoutinstruments, and to correspond by means of snails. The press, seriouslyoffering these impostures to the public, increased its credulity. 

The spirit-rappers had alighted at the château of Faverges, and thencehad spread through the village; and the notary questioned themparticularly. 

Shocked at Bouvard's scepticism, he invited the two friends to anevening party at table-turning. 

Was this a trap? Madame Bordin was to be there. Pécuchet went alone. 

There were present as spectators the mayor, the tax-collector, thecaptain, other residents and their wives, Madame Vaucorbeil, MadameBordin, of course, besides Mademoiselle Laverrière, Madame Marescot'sformer schoolmistress, a rather squint-eyed lady with her hair fallingover her shoulders in the corkscrew fashion of 1830. In an armchair sata cousin from Paris, attired in a blue coat and wearing an air ofinsolence. 

The two bronze lamps, the whatnot containing a number of curiosities, ballads embellished with vignettes on the piano, and small water-coloursin huge frames, had always excited astonishment in Chavignolles. Butthis evening all eyes were directed towards the mahogany table. Theywould test it by and by, and it had the importance of things whichcontain a mystery. A dozen guests took their places around it withoutstretched hands and their little fingers touching one another. Onlythe ticking of the clock could be heard. The faces indicated profoundattention. At the end of ten minutes several complained of tinglings inthe arms. 

Pécuchet was incommoded. 

"You are pushing!" said the captain to Foureau. 

"Not at all. "

"Yes, you are!"

"Ah! sir. "

The notary made them keep quiet. 

By dint of straining their ears they thought they could distinguishcracklings of wood. 

An illusion! Nothing had budged. 

The other day when the Aubert and Lorraine families had come fromLisieux and they had expressly borrowed Beljambe's table for theoccasion, everything had gone on so well. But this to-day exhibited acertain obstinacy. Why?

The carpet undoubtedly counteracted it, and they changed to thedining-room. 

The round table, which was on rollers, glided towards the right-handside. The operators, without displacing their fingers, followed itsmovements, and of its own accord it made two turns. They were astounded. 

Then M. Alfred articulated in a loud voice:

"Spirit, how do you find my cousin?"

The table, slowly oscillating, struck nine raps. According to a slip ofpaper, in which the number of raps were translated by letters, thismeant "Charming. "

A number of voices exclaimed "Bravo!"

Then Marescot, to tease Madame Bordin, called on the spirit to declareher exact age. 

The foot of the table came down with five taps. 

"What? five years!" cried Girbal. 

"The tens don't count, " replied Foureau. 

The widow smiled, though she was inwardly annoyed. 

The replies to the other questions were missing, so complicated was thealphabet. 

Much better was the plane table--an expeditious medium of whichMademoiselle Laverrière had made use for the purpose of noting down inan album the direct communications of Louis XII. , Clémence Isaure, Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others. These mechanicalcontrivances are sold in the Rue d'Aumale. M. Alfred promised one ofthem; then addressing the schoolmistress: "But for a quarter of an hourwe should have a little music; don't you think so? A mazurka!"

Two metal chords vibrated. He took his cousin by the waist, disappearedwith her, and came back again. 

The sweep of her dress, which just brushed the doors as they passed, cooled their faces. She flung back her head; he curved his arms. Thegracefulness of the one, the playful air of the other, excited generaladmiration; and, without waiting for the rout cakes, Pécuchet tookhimself off, amazed at the evening's exhibition. 

In vain did he repeat: "But I have seen it! I have seen it!"

Bouvard denied the facts, but nevertheless consented to make anexperiment himself. 

For a fortnight they spent every afternoon facing each other, with theirhands over a table, then over a hat, over a basket, and over plates. Allthese remained motionless. 

The phenomenon of table-turning is none the less certain. The commonherd attribute it to spirits; Faraday to prolonged nervous action;Chevreuil to unconscious efforts; or perhaps, as Segouin admits, thereis evolved from the assembly of persons an impulse, a magnetic current. 

This hypothesis made Pécuchet reflect. He took into his library the_Magnetiser's Guide_, by Montacabère, read it over attentively, andinitiated Bouvard in the theory: All animated bodies receive andcommunicate the influence of the stars--a property analogous to thevirtue of the loadstone. By directing this force we may cure the sick;there is the principle. Science has developed since Mesmer; but it isalways an important thing to pour out the fluid and to make passes, which, in the first place, must have the effect of inducing sleep. 

"Well! send me to sleep, " said Bouvard. 

"Impossible!" replied Pécuchet: "in order to be subject to the magneticaction, and to transmit it, faith is indispensable. "

Then, gazing at Bouvard: "Ah! what a pity!"

"How?"

"Yes, if you wished, with a little practice, there would not be amagnetiser anywhere like you. "

For he possessed everything that was needed: easiness of access, arobust constitution, and a solid mind. 

The discovery just made of such a faculty in himself was flattering toBouvard. He took a plunge into Montacabère's book on the sly. 

Then, as Germaine used to feel buzzings in her ears that deafened her, he said to her one evening in a careless tone:

"Suppose we try magnetism?"

She did not make any objection to it. He sat down in front of her, tookher two thumbs in his hands, and looked fixedly at her, as if he had notdone anything else all his life. 

The old dame, with her feet on a footwarmer, began by bending her neck;her eyes closed, and quite gently she began to snore. At the end of anhour, during which they had been staring at her, Pécuchet said in a lowtone:

"What do you feel?"

She awoke. 

Later, no doubt, would come lucidity. 

This success emboldened them, and, resuming with self-confidence, thepractice of medicine, they nursed Chamberlan, the beadle, for pains inhis ribs; Migraine the mason, who had a nervous affection of thestomach; Mère Varin, whose encephaloid under the collar-bone required, in order to nourish her, plasters of meat; a gouty patient, PèreLemoine, who used to crawl by the side of taverns; a consumptive; aperson afflicted with hemiplegia, and many others. They also treatedcorns and chilblains. 

After an investigation into the disease, they cast questioning glancesat each other to determine what passes to use, whether the currentsshould be large or small, ascending or descending, longitudinal, transversal, bidigital, tridigital, or even quindigital. 

When the one had had too much of it, the other replaced him. Then, whenthey had come back to their own house, they noted down their observationin their diary of treatment. 

Their suave manners captivated everyone. However, Bouvard was likedbetter, and his reputation spread as far as Falaise, where he had curedLa Barbée, the daughter of Père Barbée, a retired captain of longstanding. 

She had felt something like a nail in the back of her head, spoke in ahoarse voice, often remained several days without eating, and thenwould devour plaster or coal. Her nervous crises, beginning with sobs, ended in floods of tears; and every kind of remedy, from diet-drinks tomoxas, had been employed, so that, through sheer weariness, she acceptedBouvard's offer to cure her. 

When he had dismissed the servant-maid and bolted the door, he beganrubbing her abdomen, while leaning over the seat of the ovaries. A senseof relief manifested itself by sighs and yawns. He placed his fingerbetween her eyebrows and the top of her nose: all at once she becameinert. If one lifted her arms, they fell down again. Her head remainedin whatever attitude he wished, and her lids, half closed, vibratingwith a spasmodic movement, allowed her eyeballs to be seen rollingslowly about; they riveted themselves on the corners convulsively. 

Bouvard asked her if she were in pain. She replied that she was not. Then he inquired what she felt now. She indicated the inside of herbody. 

"What do you see there?"

"A worm. "

"What is necessary in order to kill it?"

She wrinkled her brow. "I am looking for--I am not able! I am not able!"

At the second sitting she prescribed for herself nettle-broth; at thethird, catnip. The crises became mitigated, then disappeared. It wastruly a miracle. The nasal addigitation did not succeed with the others, and, in order to bring on somnambulism, they projected the constructionof a mesmeric tub. Pécuchet already had even collected the filings andcleaned a score of bottles, when a scruple made him hesitate. 

Amongst the patients there would be persons of the other sex. 

"And what are we to do if this should give rise to an outburst of eroticmania?"

This would not have proved any impediment to Bouvard; but for fear ofimpostures and attempts to extort hush-money, it was better to put asidethe project. They contented themselves with a collection of musicalglasses, which they carried about with them to the different houses, soas to delight the children. 

One day, when Migraine was worse, they had recourse to the musicalglasses. The crystalline sounds exasperated him; but Deleuze enjoinsthat one should not be frightened by complaints; and so they went onwith the music. 

"Enough! enough!" he cried. 

"A little patience!" Bouvard kept repeating. 

Pécuchet tapped more quickly on the glass plates, and the instrument wasvibrating in the midst of the poor man's cries when the doctor appeared, attracted by the hubbub. 

"What! you again?" he exclaimed, enraged at finding them always with hispatients. 

They explained their magnetic method of curing. Then he declaimedagainst magnetism--"a heap of juggleries, whose effects came only fromthe imagination. "

However, animals are magnetised. Montacabère so states, and M. Fontainesucceeded in magnetising a lion. They had not a lion, but chance hadoffered them another animal. 

For on the following day a ploughboy came to inform them that they werewanted up at the farm for a cow in a hopeless condition. 

They hurried thither. The apple trees were in bloom, and the herbage inthe farmyard was steaming under the rays of the rising sun. 

At the side of a pond, half covered with a cloth, a cow was lowing, while she shivered under the pails of water that were being emptied overher body, and, enormously swollen, she looked like a hippopotamus. 

Without doubt she had got "venom" while grazing amid the clover. PèreGouy and his wife were afflicted because the veterinary surgeon was notable to come, and the wheelwright who had a charm against swelling didnot choose to put himself out of his way; but "these gentlemen, whoselibrary was famous, must know the secret. "

Having tucked up their sleeves, they placed themselves one in front ofthe horns, the other at the rump, and, with great internal efforts andfrantic gesticulations, they spread wide their fingers in order toscatter streams of fluid over the animal, while the farmer, his wife, their son, and the neighbours regarded them almost with terror. 

The rumblings which were heard in the cow's belly caused borborygms inthe interior of her bowels. She emitted wind. 

Pécuchet thereupon said: "This is an opening door for hope--an outlet, perhaps. "

The outlet produced its effect: the hope gushed forth in a bundle ofyellow stuff, bursting with the force of a shell. The hide got loose;the cow got rid of her swelling. An hour later there was no longer anysign of it. 

This was certainly not the result of imagination. Therefore the fluidcontained some special virtue. It lets itself be shut up in the objectsto whom it is given without being impaired. Such an expedient savesdisplacements. They adopted it; and they sent their clients magnetisedtokens, magnetised handkerchiefs, magnetised water, and magnetisedbread. 

Then, continuing their studies, they abandoned the passes for the systemof Puységur, which replaces the magnetiser by means of an old tree, about the trunk of which a cord is rolled. 

A pear tree in their fruit garden seemed made expressly for the purpose. They prepared it by vigorously encircling it with many pressures. Abench was placed underneath. Their clients sat in a row, and the resultsobtained there were so marvellous that, in order to get the better ofVaucorbeil, they invited him to a _séance_ along with the leadingpersonages of the locality. 

Not one failed to attend. Germaine received them in the breakfast-room, making excuses on behalf of her masters, who would join them presently. 

From time to time they heard the bell ringing. It was the patients whomshe was bringing in by another way. The guests nudged one another, drawing attention to the windows covered with dust, the stains on thepanels, the frayed pictures; and the garden, too, was in a wretchedstate. Dead wood everywhere! The orchard was barricaded with two sticksthrust into a gap in the wall. 

Pécuchet made his appearance. "At your service, gentlemen. "

And they saw at the end of the garden, under the Edouïn pear tree, anumber of persons seated. 

Chamberlan, clean-shaven like a priest, in a short cassock of lasting, with a leathern cap, gave himself up to the shivering sensationsengendered by the pains in his ribs. Migraine, whose stomach was alwaystormenting him, made wry faces close beside him. Mère Varin, to hide hertumour, wore a shawl with many folds. Père Lemoine, his feetstockingless in his old shoes, had his crutches under his knees; and LaBarbée, who wore her Sunday clothes, looked exceedingly pale. 

At the opposite side of the tree were other persons. A woman with analbino type of countenance was sponging the suppurating glands of herneck; a little girl's face half disappeared under her blue glasses; anold man, whose spine was deformed by a contraction, with his involuntarymovements knocked against Marcel, a sort of idiot clad in a tatteredblouse and a patched pair of trousers. His hare-lip, badly stitched, allowed his incisors to be seen, and his jaw, which was swollen by anenormous inflammation, was muffled up in linen. 

They were all holding in their hands pieces of twine that hung down fromthe tree. The birds were singing, and the air was impregnated with therefreshing smell of grass. The sun played with the branches, and theground was smooth as moss. 

Meanwhile, instead of going to sleep, the subjects of the experimentwere straining their eyes. 

"Up to the present, " said Foureau, "it is not funny. Begin. I am goingaway for a minute. "

And he came back smoking an Abd-el-Kader, the last that was left fromthe gate with the pipes. 

Pécuchet recalled to mind an admirable method of magnetising. He putinto his mouth the noses of all the patients in succession, and inhaledtheir breath, in order to attract the electricity to himself; and atthe same time Bouvard clasped the tree, with the object of augmentingthe fluid. 

The mason interrupted his hiccoughs; the beadle was agitated; the manwith the contraction moved no more. It was possible now to approachthem, and make them submit to all the tests. 

The doctor, with his lancet, pricked Chamberlan's ear, which trembled alittle. Sensibility in the case of the others was manifest. The goutyman uttered a cry. As for La Barbée, she smiled, as if in a dream, and astream of blood trickled under her jaw. 

Foureau, in order to make the experiment himself, would fain have seizedthe lancet, but the doctor having refused, he vigorously pinched theinvalid. 

The captain tickled her nostrils with a feather; the tax-collectorplunged a pin under her skin. 

"Let her alone now, " said Vaucorbeil; "it is nothing astonishing, afterall. Simply a hysterical female! The devil will have his pains fornothing. "

"That one there, " said Pécuchet, pointing towards Victoire, thescrofulous woman, "is a physician. She recognises diseases, andindicates the remedies. "

Langlois burned to consult her about his catarrh; but Coulon, morecourageous, asked her for something for his rheumatism. 

Pécuchet placed his right hand in Victoire's left, and, with her lidsclosed uninterruptedly, her cheeks a little red, her lips quivering, thesomnambulist, after some rambling utterances, ordered _valum becum_. 

She had assisted in an apothecary's shop at Bayeux. Vaucorbeil drew theinference that what she wanted to say was _album Græcum_ a term which isto be found in pharmacy. 

Then they accosted Père Lemoine, who, according to Bouvard, could seeobjects through opaque bodies. He was an ex-schoolmaster, who had sunkinto debauchery. White hairs were scattered about his face, and, withhis back against the tree and his palms open, he was sleeping in thebroad sunlight in a majestic fashion. 

The physician drew over his eyes a double neckcloth; and Bouvard, extending a newspaper towards him, said imperiously:

"Read!"

He lowered his brow, moved the muscles of his face, then threw back hishead, and ended by spelling out:

"Cons-ti-tu-tion-al. "

But with skill the muffler could be slipped off!

These denials by the physician roused Pécuchet's indignation. He evenventured to pretend that La Barbée could describe what was actuallytaking place in his own house. 

"May be so, " returned the doctor. 

Then, taking out his watch:

"What is my wife occupying herself with?"

For a long time La Barbée hesitated; then with a sullen air:

"Hey! what? I am there! She is sewing ribbons on a straw hat. "

Vaucorbeil snatched a leaf from his note-book and wrote a few lines onit, which Marescot's clerk hastened to deliver. 

The _séance_ was over. The patients went away. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet, on the whole, had not succeeded. Was this due tothe temperature, or to the smell of tobacco, or to the Abbé Jeufroy'sumbrella, which had a lining of copper, a metal unfavourable to theemission of the fluid?

Vaucorbeil shrugged his shoulders. However, he could not deny thehonesty of MM. Deleuze, Bertrand, Morin, Jules Cloquet. Now thesemasters lay down that somnambulists have predicted events, and submittedwithout pain to cruel operations. 

The abbé related stories more astonishing. A missionary had seenBrahmins rushing, heads down, through a street; the Grand Lama of Thibetrips open his bowels in order to deliver oracles. 

"Are you joking?" said the physician. 

"By no means. "

"Come, now, what tomfoolery that is!"

And the question being dropped, each of them furnished an anecdote. 

"As for me, " said the grocer, "I had a dog who was always sick when themonth began on a Friday. "

"We were fourteen children, " observed the justice of the peace. "I wasborn on the 14th, my marriage took place on the 14th, and my saint's-dayfalls on the 14th. Explain this to me. "

Beljambe had often reckoned in a dream the number of travellers he wouldhave next day at his inn; and Petit told about the supper of Cazotte. 

The curé then made this reflection:

"Why do we not see into it quite easily?"

"The demons--is that what you say?" asked Vaucorbeil. 

Instead of again opening his lips, the abbé nodded his head. 

Marescot spoke of the Pythia of Delphi. 

"Beyond all question, miasmas. "

"Oh! miasmas now!"

"As for me, I admit the existence of a fluid, " remarked Bouvard. 

"Nervoso-siderial, " added Pécuchet. 

"But prove it, show it, this fluid of yours! Besides, fluids are out offashion. Listen to me. "

Vaucorbeil moved further up to get into the shade. The others followedhim. 

"If you say to a child, 'I am a wolf; I am going to eat you, ' heimagines that you are a wolf, and he is frightened. Therefore, this is avision conjured up by words. In the same way the somnambulist acceptsany fancies that you desire him to accept. He recollects instead ofimagining, and has merely sensations when he believes that he isthinking. In this manner it is possible for crimes to be suggested, andvirtuous people may see themselves ferocious beasts, and involuntarilybecome cannibals. "

Glances were cast towards Bouvard and Pécuchet. Their scientificpursuits were fraught with dangers to society. 

Marescot's clerk reappeared in the garden flourishing a letter fromMadame Vaucorbeil. 

The doctor tore it open, turned pale, and finally read these words:

"_I am sewing ribbons on a straw hat. _"

Amazement prevented them from bursting into a laugh. 

"A mere coincidence, deuce take it! It proves nothing. "

And as the two magnetisers wore looks of triumph, he turned round at thedoor to say to them:

"Don't go further. These are risky amusements. "

The curé, while leading away his beadle, reproved them sternly:

"Are you mad? Without my permission! Practices forbidden by the Church!"

They had all just taken their leave; Bouvard and Pécuchet were talkingto the schoolmaster on the hillock, when Marcel rushed from the orchard, the bandage of his chin undone, and stuttered:

"Cured! cured! good gentlemen. "

"All right! enough! Let us alone. "

Petit, a man of advanced ideas, thought the doctor's explanationcommonplace and unenlightened. Science is a monopoly in the hands of therich. She excludes the people. To the old-fashioned analysis of theMiddle Ages it is time that a large and ready-witted synthesis shouldsucceed. Truth should be arrived at through the heart. And, declaringhimself a spiritualist, he pointed out several works, no doubtimperfect, but the heralds of a new dawn. 

They sent for them. 

Spiritualism lays down as a dogma the fated amelioration of our species. Earth will one day become Heaven. And this is the reason why thedoctrine fascinated the schoolmaster. Without being Catholic, it wasknown to St. Augustine and St. Louis. Allan Kardec even has publishedsome fragments dictated by them which are in accordance withcontemporary opinions. It is practical as well as benevolent, andreveals to us, like the telescope, the supernal worlds. 

Spirits, after death and in a state of ecstasy, are transported thither. But sometimes they descend upon our globe, where they make furniturecreak, mingle in our amusements, taste the beauties of Nature, and thepleasures of the arts. 

Nevertheless, there are amongst us many who possess an astraltrunk--that is to say, behind the ear a long tube which ascends fromthe hair to the planets, and permits us to converse with the spirits ofSaturn. Intangible things are not less real, and from the earth to thestars, from the stars to the earth, a see-saw motion takes place, atransmission, a continual change of place. 

Then Pécuchet's heart swelled with extravagant aspirations, and whennight had come Bouvard surprised him at the window contemplating thoseluminous spaces which are peopled with spirits. 

Swedenborg made rapid journeys to them. For in less than a year heexplored Venus, Mars, Saturn, and, twenty-three times, Jupiter. Moreover, he saw Jesus Christ in London; he saw St. Paul; he saw St. John; he saw Moses; and in 1736 he saw the Last Judgment. 

He has also given us descriptions of Heaven. 

Flowers, palaces, market-places, and churches are found there, just aswith us. The angels, who were formerly human beings, lay their thoughtsupon leaves, chat about domestic affairs or else on spiritual matters;and the ecclesiastical posts are assigned to those who, in their earthlycareer, cultivated the Holy Scripture. 

As for Hell, it is filled with a nauseous smell, with hovels, heaps offilth, quagmires, and ill-clad persons. 

And Pécuchet racked his brain in order to comprehend what was beautifulin these revelations. To Bouvard they seemed the delirium of animbecile. All such matters transcend the bounds of Nature. Who, however, can know anything about them? And they surrendered themselves to thefollowing reflections:

Jugglers can cause illusions amongst a crowd; a man with violentpassions can excite other people by them; but how can the will alone actupon inert matter? A Bavarian, it is said, was able to ripen grapes; M. Gervais revived a heliotrope; one with greater power scattered theclouds at Toulouse. 

It is necessary to admit an intermediary substance between the universeand ourselves? The od, a new imponderable, a sort of electricity, isperhaps nothing else. Its emissions explain the light that those whohave been magnetised believe they see: the wandering flames incemeteries, the forms of phantoms. 

These images would not, therefore, be illusions, and the extraordinarygifts of persons who are possessed, like those of clairvoyants, wouldhave a physical cause. 

Whatever be their origin, there is an essence, a secret and universalagent. If we could take possession of it, there would be no need offorce, of duration. That which requires ages would develop in a minute;every miracle would be practicable, and the universe would be at ourdisposal. 

Magic springs from this eternal yearning of the human mind. Its valuehas no doubt been exaggerated, but it is not a falsehood. Some Orientalswho are skilled in it perform prodigies. All travellers have vouched forits existence, and at the Palais Royal M. Dupotet moves with his fingerthe magnetic needle. 

How to become magicians? This idea appeared to them foolish at first, but it returned, tormented them, and they yielded to it, even whileaffecting to laugh. 

A course of preparation is indispensable. 

In order to excite themselves the better, they kept awake at night, fasted, and, wishing to convert Germaine into a more delicate medium, they limited her diet. She indemnified herself by drinking, and consumedso much brandy that she speedily ended in becoming intoxicated. Theirpromenades in the corridor awakened her. She confused the noise of theirfootsteps with the hummings in her ears and the voices which sheimagined she heard coming from the walls. One day, when she had put aplaice into the pantry, she was frightened on seeing it covered withflame; she became worse than ever after that, and ended by believingthat they had cast a spell over her. 

Hoping to behold visions, they pressed the napes of each other's necks;they made themselves little bags of belladonna; finally they adopted themagic box, out of which rises a mushroom bristling with nails, to beworn over the heart by means of a ribbon attached to the breast. Everything proved unsuccessful. But they might make use of the sphere ofDupotet!

Pécuchet, with a piece of charcoal, traced on the ground a black shield, in order to enclose within its compass the animal spirits whose duty itis to assist the ambient spirits, and rejoicing at having the masteryover Bouvard, he said to him, with a pontifical air:

"I defy you to cross it!"

Bouvard viewed this circular space. Soon his heart began throbbing, hiseyes became clouded. 

"Ha! let us make an end of it!" And he jumped over it, to get rid of aninexpressible sense of unpleasantness. 

Pécuchet, whose exultation was increasing, desired to make a corpseappear. 

Under the Directory a man in the Rue de l'Échiquier exhibited thevictims of the Terror. There are innumerable examples of persons comingback from the other world. Though it may be a mere appearance, whatmatter? The thing was to produce the effect. 

The nearer to us we feel the phantom, the more promptly it responds toour appeal. But he had no relic of his family--ring, miniature, or lockof hair--while Bouvard was in a position to conjure up his father; but, as he testified a certain repugnance on the subject, Pécuchet asked him:

"What are you afraid of?"

"I? Oh! nothing at all! Do what you like. "

They kept Chamberlan in their pay, and he supplied them by stealth withan old death's-head. A seamster cut out for them two long black robeswith hoods attached, like monks' habits. The Falaise coach brought thema large parcel in a wrapper. Then they set about the work, the oneinterested in executing it, the other afraid to believe in it. 

The museum was spread out like a catafalque. Three wax tapers burned atthe side of the table pushed against the wall beneath the portrait ofPère Bouvard, above which rose the death's-head. They had even stuffed acandle into the interior of the skull, and rays of light shot outthrough the two eyeholes. 

In the centre, on a chafing-dish, incense was smoking. Bouvard kept inthe background, and Pécuchet, turning his back to him, cast handfuls ofsulphur into the fireplace. 

Before invoking a corpse the consent of the demons is required. Now, this day being a Friday--a day which is assigned to Béchet--they shouldoccupy themselves with Béchet first of all. 

Bouvard, having bowed to the right and to the left, bent his chin, andraised his arms, began:

"In the names of Ethaniel, Anazin, Ischyros----"

He forgot the rest. 

Pécuchet rapidly breathed forth the words, which had been jotted down ona piece of pasteboard:

"Ischyros, Athanatos, Adonaï, Sadaï, Eloy, Messiasös" (the litany was along one), "I implore thee, I look to thee, I command thee, O Béchet!"

Then, lowering his voice:

"Where art thou, Béchet? Béchet! Béchet! Béchet!"

Bouvard sank into the armchair, and he was very pleased at not seeingBéchet, a certain instinct reproaching him with making an experimentwhich was a kind of sacrilege. 

Where was his father's soul? Could it hear him? What if, all at once, itwere about to appear?

The curtains slowly moved under the wind, which made its way in througha cracked pane of glass, and the wax-tapers caused shadows to oscillateabove the corpse's skull and also above the painted face. An earthycolour made them equally brown. The cheek-bones were consumed bymouldiness, the eyes no longer possessed any lustre; but a flame shoneabove them in the eyeholes of the empty skull. It seemed sometimes totake the other's place, to rest on the collar of the frock-coat, to havea beard on it; and the canvas, half unfastened, swayed and palpitated. 

Little by little they felt, as it were, the sensation of being touchedby a breath, the approach of an impalpable being. Drops of sweatmoistened Pécuchet's forehead, and Bouvard began to gnash his teeth: acramp gripped his epigastrium; the floor, like a wave, seemed to flowunder his heels; the sulphur burning in the chimney fell down inspirals. At the same moment bats flitted about. A cry arose. Who was it?

And their faces under their hoods presented such a distorted aspectthat, gazing at each other, they were becoming more frightened thanbefore, not venturing either to move or to speak, when behind the doorthey heard groans like those of a soul in torture. 

At length they ran the risk. It was their old housekeeper, who, espyingthem through a slit in the partition, imagined she saw the devil, and, falling on her knees in the corridor, kept repeatedly making the sign ofthe Cross. 

All reasoning was futile. She left them the same evening, having nodesire to be employed by such people. 

Germaine babbled. Chamberlan lost his place, and he formed against thema secret coalition, supported by the Abbé Jeufroy, Madame Bordin, andFoureau. 

Their way of living, so unlike that of other people, gave offence. Theybecame objects of suspicion, and even inspired a vague terror. 

What destroyed them above all in public opinion was their choice of aservant. For want of another, they had taken Marcel. 

His hare-lip, his hideousness, and the gibberish he talked made peopleavoid him. A deserted child, he had grown up, the sport of chance, inthe fields, and from his long-continued privations he became possessedby an insatiable appetite. Animals that had died of disease, putridbacon, a crushed dog--everything agreed with him so long as the piecewas thick; and he was as gentle as a sheep, but utterly stupid. 

Gratitude had driven him to offer himself as a servant to MM. Bouvardand Pécuchet; and then, believing that they were wizards, he hoped forextraordinary gains. 

Soon after the first days of his employment with them, he confided tothem a secret. On the heath of Poligny a man had formerly found an ingotof gold. The anecdote is related by the historians of Falaise; they wereignorant of its sequel: Twelve brothers, before setting out on a voyage, had concealed twelve similar ingots along the road from Chavignolles toBretteville, and Marcel begged of his masters to begin a search for themover again. These ingots, said they to each other, had perhaps beenburied just before emigration. 

This was a case for the use of the divining-rod. Its virtues aredoubtful. They studied the question, however, and learned that a certainPierre Garnier gives scientific reasons to vindicate its claims: springsand metals throw out corpuscles which have an affinity with the wood. 

"This is scarcely probable. Who knows, however? Let us make theattempt. "

They cut themselves a forked branch from a hazel tree, and one morningset forth to discover the treasure. 

"It must be given up, " said Bouvard. 

"Oh, no! bless your soul!"

After they had been three hours travelling, a thought made them draw up:"The road from Chavignolles to Bretteville!--was it the old or the newroad? It must be the old!"

They went back, and rushed through the neighbourhood at random, thedirection of the old road not being easy to discover. 

Marcel went jumping from right to left, like a spaniel running atfield-sports. Bouvard was compelled to call him back every five minutes. Pécuchet advanced step by step, holding the rod by the two branches, with the point upwards. Often it seemed to him that a force and, as itwere, a cramp-iron drew it towards the ground; and Marcel very rapidlymade a notch in the neighbouring trees, in order to find the placelater. 

Pécuchet, however, slackened his pace. His mouth was open; the pupils ofhis eyes were contracted. Bouvard questioned him, caught hold of hisshoulders, and shook him. He did not stir, and remained inert, exactlylike La Barbée. Then he said he felt around his heart a kind ofcompression, a singular experience, arising from the rod, no doubt, andhe no longer wished to touch it. 

They returned next day to the place where the marks had been made on thetrees. Marcel dug holes with a spade; nothing, however, came of it, andeach time they felt exceedingly sheepish. Pécuchet sat down by the sideof a ditch, and while he mused, with his head raised, striving to hearthe voices of the spirits through his astral body, asking himselfwhether he even had one, he fixed his eyes on the peak of his cap; theecstasy of the previous day once more took possession of him. It lasteda long time, and became dreadful. 

Above some oats in a by-path appeared a felt hat: it was that of M. Vaucorbeil on his mare. 

Bouvard and Marcel called out to him. 

The crisis was drawing to an end when the physician arrived. In order toexamine Pécuchet he lifted his cap, and perceiving a forehead coveredwith coppery marks:

"Ha! ha! _Fructus belli!_ Those are love-spots, my fine fellow! Takecare of yourself. The deuce! let us not trifle with love. "

Pécuchet, ashamed, again put on his cap, a sort of head-piece thatswelled over a peak shaped like a half-moon, the model of which he hadtaken from the Atlas of Amoros. 

The doctor's words astounded him. He kept thinking of them with his eyesstaring before him, and suddenly had another seizure. 

Vaucorbeil watched him, then, with a fillip, knocked off his cap. 

Pécuchet recovered his faculties. 

"I suspected as much, " said the physician; "the glazed peak hypnotisesyou like a mirror; and this phenomenon is not rare with persons who lookat a shining substance too attentively. "

He pointed out how the experiment might be made on hens, then mountedhis nag, and slowly disappeared from their view. 

Half a league further on they noticed, in a farmyard, a pyramidal objectstretched out towards the horizon. It might have been compared to anenormous bunch of black grapes marked here and there with red dots. Itwas, in fact, a long pole, garnished, according to the Norman custom, with cross-bars, on which were perched turkeys bridling in the sunshine. 

"Let us go in. " And Pécuchet accosted the farmer, who yielded to theirrequest. 

They traced a line with whiting in the middle of the press, tied downthe claws of a turkey-cock, then stretched him flat on his belly, withhis beak placed on the line. The fowl shut his eyes, and soon presentedthe appearance of being dead. The same process was gone through with theothers. Bouvard passed them quickly across to Pécuchet, who ranged themon the side on which they had become torpid. 

The people about the farm-house exhibited uneasiness. The mistressscreamed, and a little girl began to cry. 

Bouvard loosened all the turkeys. They gradually revived; but one couldnot tell what might be the consequences. 

At a rather tart remark of Pécuchet, the farmer grasped his pitchforktightly. 

"Clear out, in God's name, or I'll smash your head!"

They scampered off. 

No matter! the problem was solved: ecstasy is dependent on materialcauses. 

What, then, is matter? What is spirit? Whence comes the influence of theone on the other, and the reciprocal exchange of influence?

In order to inform themselves on the subject, they made researches inthe works of Voltaire, Bossuet, Fénelon; and they renewed theirsubscription to a circulating library. 

The ancient teachers were inaccessible owing to the length of theirworks, or the difficulty of the language; but Jouffroy and Damironinitiated them into modern philosophy, and they had authors who dealtwith that of the last century. 

Bouvard derived his arguments from Lamettrie, Locke, and Helvetius;Pécuchet from M. Cousin, Thomas Reid, and Gérando. The former adhered toexperience; for the latter, the ideal was everything. The one belongedto the school of Aristotle, the other to that of Plato; and theyproceeded to discuss the subject. 

"The soul is immaterial, " said Pécuchet. 

"By no means, " said his friend. "Lunacy, chloroform, a bleeding willoverthrow it; and, inasmuch as it is not always thinking, it is not asubstance which does nothing but think. "

"Nevertheless, " rejoined Pécuchet, "I have in myself something superiorto my body, which sometimes confutes it. "

"A being in a being--_homo duplex_! Look here, now! Different tendenciesdisclose opposite motives. That's all!"

"But this something, this soul, remains identical amid all changes fromwithout. Therefore, it is simple, indivisible, and thus spiritual. "

"If the soul were simple, " replied Bouvard, "the newly-born wouldrecollect, would imagine, like the adult. Thought, on the contrary, follows the development of the brain. As to its being indivisible, neither the perfume of a rose nor the appetite of a wolf, any more thana volition or an affirmation, is cut in two. "

"That makes no difference, " said Pécuchet. "The soul is exempt from thequalities of matter. "

"Do you admit weight?" returned Bouvard. "Now, if matter can fall, itcan in the same way think. Having had a beginning, the soul must cometo an end, and as it is dependent on certain organs, it must disappearwith them. "

"For my part, I maintain that it is immortal. God could not intend----"

"But if God does not exist?"

"What?" And Pécuchet gave utterance to the three Cartesian proofs:"'_Primo_: God is comprehended in the idea that we have of Him;_secundo_: Existence is possible to Him; _tertio_: How can I, a finitebeing, have an idea of the Infinite? And, since we have this idea, itcomes to us from God; therefore, God exists. '"

He passed on to the testimony of conscience, the traditions of differentraces, and the need of a Creator. 

"When I see a clock----"

"Yes! yes! That's a well-known argument. But where is the clockmaker'sfather?"

"However, a cause is necessary. "

Bouvard was doubtful about causes. "From the fact that one phenomenonsucceeds another phenomenon, the conclusion is drawn that it is causedby the first. Prove it. "

"But the spectacle of the universe indicates an intention and a plan. "

"Why? Evil is as perfectly organised as good. The worm that works itsway into a sheep's head and causes it to die, is as valuable from ananatomical point of view as the sheep itself. Abnormalities surpass thenormal functions. The human body could be better constructed. Threefourths of the globe are sterile. That celestial lamp-post, the moon, does not always show itself! Do you think the ocean was destined forships, and the wood of trees for fuel for our houses?"

Pécuchet answered: "Yet the stomach is made to digest, the leg to walk, the eye to see, although there are dyspepsias, fractures, and cataracts. No arrangements without an end. The effects came on at the exact time orat a later period. Everything depends on laws; therefore, there arefinal causes. "

Bouvard imagined that perhaps Spinoza would furnish him with somearguments, and he wrote to Dumouchel to get him Saisset's translation. 

Dumouchel sent him a copy belonging to his friend Professor Varelot, exiled on the 2nd of December. 

Ethics terrified them with its axioms, its corollaries. They read onlythe pages marked with pencil, and understood this:

"'The substance is that which is of itself, by itself, without cause, without origin. This substance is God. He alone is extension, andextension is without bounds. '"

"What can it be bound with?"

"'But, though it be infinite, it is not the absolute infinite, for itcontains only one kind of perfection, and the Absolute contains all. '"

They frequently stopped to think it out the better. Pécuchet tookpinches of snuff, and Bouvard's face glowed with concentrated attention. 

"Does this amuse you?"

"Yes, undoubtedly. Go on forever. "

"'God displays Himself in an infinite number of attributes whichexpress, each in its own way, the infinite character of His being. Weknow only two of them--extension and thought. 

"'From thought and extension flow innumerable modes, which containothers. He who would at the same time embrace all extension and allthought would see there no contingency, nothing accidental, but ageometrical succession of terms, bound amongst themselves by necessarylaws. '"

"Ah! that would be beautiful!" exclaimed Bouvard. 

"'If God had a will, an end, if He acted for a cause, that would meanthat He would have some want, that He would lack some one perfection. Hewould not be God. 

"'Thus our world is but one point in the whole of things, and theuniverse, impenetrable by our knowledge, is a portion of an infinitenumber of universes emitting close to ours infinite modifications. Extension envelops our universe, but is enveloped by God, who containsin His thought all possible universes, and His thought itself isenveloped in His substance. '"

It appeared to them that this substance was filled at night with an icycoldness, carried away in an endless course towards a bottomless abyss, leaving nothing around them but the Unseizable, the Immovable, theEternal. 

This was too much for them, and they renounced it. And wishing forsomething less harsh, they bought the course of philosophy, by M. Guesnier, for the use of classes. 

The author asks himself what would be the proper method, the ontologicalor the psychological. 

The first suited the infancy of societies, when man directed hisattention towards the external world. But at present, when he turns itin upon himself, "we believe the second to be more scientific. "

The object of psychology is to study the acts which take place in ourown breasts. We discover them by observation. 

"Let us observe. " And for a fortnight, after breakfast, they regularlysearched their consciousness at random, hoping to make great discoveriesthere--and made none, which considerably astonished them. 

"'One phenomenon occupies the ego, viz. , the idea. What is its nature?It has been supposed that the objects are put into the brain, and thatthe brain transmits these images to our souls, which gives us theknowledge of them. '"

But if the idea is spiritual, how are we to represent matter? Thencecomes scepticism as to external perceptions. If it is material, spiritual objects could not be represented. Thence scepticism as to thereality of internal notions. 

"For another reason let us here be careful. This hypothesis will lead usto atheism. "

For an image, being a finite thing, cannot possibly represent theInfinite. 

"Yet, " argued Bouvard, "when I think of a forest, of a person, of a dog, I see this forest, this person, this dog. Therefore the ideas dorepresent them. "

And they proceeded to deal with the origin of ideas. 

According to Locke, there are two originating causes--sensation andreflection; and Condillac reduces everything to sensation. 

But then reflection will lack a basis. It has need of a subject, of asentient being; and it is powerless to furnish us with the greatfundamental truths: God, merit and demerit, the Just, theBeautiful--ideas which are all _innate_, that is to say, anterior tofacts, and to experience, and universal. 

"If they were universal we should have them from our birth. "

"By this word is meant dispositions to have them; and Descartes----"

"Your Descartes is muddled, for he maintains that the foetus possessesthem, and he confesses in another place that this is in an impliedfashion. "

Pécuchet was astonished. "Where is this found?"

"In Gérando. " And Bouvard tapped him lightly on the stomach. 

"Make an end of it, then, " said Pécuchet. 

Then, coming to Condillac:

"'Our thoughts are not metamorphoses of sensation. It causes them, putsthem in play. In order to put them in play a motive power is necessary, for matter of itself cannot produce movement. ' And I found that in yourVoltaire, " Pécuchet added, making a low bow to him. 

Thus they repeated again and again the same arguments, each treating theother's opinion with contempt, without persuading his companion that hisown was right. 

But philosophy elevated them in their own estimation. They recalled withdisdain their agricultural and political preoccupations. 

At present they were disgusted with the museum. They would have askednothing better than to sell the articles of _virtù_ contained in it. Sothey passed on to the second chapter: "Faculties of the Soul. "

"'They are three in number, no more: that of feeling, that of knowing, and that of willing. 

"'In the faculty of feeling we should distinguish physical sensibilityfrom moral sensibility. Physical sensations are naturally classifiedinto five species, being transmitted through the medium of the senses. The facts of moral sensibility, on the contrary, owe nothing to thebody. What is there in common between the pleasure of Archimedes indiscovering the laws of weight and the filthy gratification of Apiciusin devouring a wild-boar's head?

"'This moral sensibility has five _genera_, and its second genus, moraldesires, is divided into five species, and the phenomena of the fourthgenus, affection, are subdivided into two other species, amongst whichis the love of oneself--a legitimate propensity, no doubt, but onewhich, when it becomes exaggerated, takes the name of egoism. 

"'In the faculty of knowing we find rational perception, in which thereare two principal movements and four degrees. 

"'Abstraction may present perils to whimsical minds. 

"'Memory brings us into contact with the past, as foresight does withthe future. 

"'Imagination is rather a special faculty, _sui generis_. '"

So many intricacies in order to demonstrate platitudes, the pedantictone of the author, and the monotony of his forms of expression--"We areprepared to acknowledge it, " "Far from us be the thought, " "Let usinterrogate our consciousness"--the sempiternal eulogy on DugaldStewart; in short, all this verbiage, disgusted them so much that, jumping over the faculty of willing, they went into logic. 

It taught them the nature of analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, and the principal causes of our errors. 

Nearly all come from the misuse of words. 

"The sun is going to bed. " "The weather is becoming brown, " "The winteris drawing near"--vicious modes of speech which would make us believe inpersonal entities, when it is only a question of very simpleoccurrences. "I remember such an object, " "such an axiom, " "such atruth"--illusion! These are ideas and not at all things which remain inme; and the rigour of language requires, "I remember such an act of mymind by which I perceived that object, " "whereby I have deduced thataxiom, " "whereby I have admitted this truth. "

As the term that describes an incident does not embrace it in all itsaspects, they try to employ only abstract words, so that in place ofsaying, "Let us make a tour, " "It is time to dine, " "I have the colic, "they give utterance to the following phrases: "A promenade would besalutary, " "This is the hour for absorbing aliments, " "I experience anecessity for disburdenment. "

Once masters of logic, they passed in review the different criterions;first, that of common sense. 

If the individual can know nothing, why should all individuals knowmore? An error, were it a hundred thousand years old, does not by themere fact of its being old constitute truth. The multitude invariablypursues the path of routine. It is, on the contrary, the few who areguided by progress. 

Is it better to trust to the evidence of the senses? They sometimesdeceive, and never give information save as to externals. The innermostcore escapes them. 

Reason offers more safeguards, being immovable and impersonal; but inorder that it may be manifested it is necessary that it shouldincarnate itself. Then, reason becomes my reason; a rule is of littlevalue if it is false. Nothing can show such a rule to be right. 

We are recommended to control it with the senses; but they may make thedarkness thicker. From a confused sensation a defective law will beinferred, which, later, will obstruct the clear view of things. 

Morality remains. 

This would make God descend to the level of the useful, as if our wantswere the measure of the Absolute. 

As for the evidence--denied by the one, affirmed by the other--it is itsown criterion. M. Cousin has demonstrated it. 

"I see no longer anything but revelation, " said Bouvard. "But, tobelieve it, it is necessary to admit two preliminary cognitions--that ofthe body which has felt, and that of the intelligence which hasperceived; to admit sensation and reason. Human testimonies! andconsequently open to suspicion. "

Pécuchet reflected--folded his arms. "But we are about to fall into thefrightful abyss of scepticism. "

In Bouvard's opinion it frightened only weak brains. 

"Thank you for the compliment, " returned Pécuchet. "However, there areindisputable facts. We can arrive at truth within a certain limit. "

"Which? Do two and two always make four? Is that which is contained insome degree less than that which contains it? What is the meaning ofnearly true, a fraction of God, the part of an indivisible thing?"

"Oh, you are a mere sophist!" And Pécuchet, annoyed, remained for threedays in a sulk. 

They employed themselves in running through the contents of severalvolumes. Bouvard smiled from time to time, and renewing theconversation, said:

"The fact is, it is hard to avoid doubt; thus, for the existence of God, Descartes', Kant's, and Leibnitz's proofs are not the same, and mutuallydestroy one another. The creation of the world by atoms, or by a spirit, remains inconceivable. I feel myself, at the same time, matter andthought, while all the time I am ignorant of what one or the otherreally is. Impenetrability, solidity, weight, seem to me to be mysteriesjust as much as my soul, and, with much stronger reason, the union ofthe soul and the body. In order to explain it, Leibnitz invented hisharmony, Malebranche premotion, Cudworth a mediator, and Bossuet sees init a perpetual miracle. "

"Exactly, " said Pécuchet. And they both confessed that they were tiredof philosophy. Such a number of systems confused them. Metaphysics is ofno use: one can live without it. Besides, their pecuniary embarrassmentswere increasing. They owed one bill to Beljambe for three hogsheads ofwine, another to Langlois for two stone of sugar, a sum of one hundredfrancs to the tailor, and sixty to the shoemaker. 

Their expenditures were continuous, of course, and meantime Maître Gouydid not pay up. 

They went to Marescot to ask him to raise money for them, either by thesale of the Ecalles meadow, or by a mortgage on their farm, or by givingup their house on the condition of getting a life annuity and keepingthe usufruct. 

In Marescot's opinion this would be an impracticable course; but abetter means might be devised, and they should be informed about it. 

After this they thought of their poor garden. Bouvard undertook thepruning of the row of elms and Pécuchet the trimming of the espalier. Marcel would have to dig the borders. 

At the end of a quarter of an hour they stopped. The one closed hispruning-knife, the other laid down his scissors, and they began to walkto and fro quietly, Bouvard in the shade of the linden trees, with hiswaistcoat off, his chest held out and his arms bare; Pécuchet close tothe wall, with his head hanging down, his arms behind his back, the peakof his cap turned over his neck for precaution; and thus they proceededin parallel lines without even seeing Marcel, who was resting at theside of the hut eating a scrap of bread. 

In this reflective mood thoughts arose in their minds. They grasped atthem, fearing to lose them; and metaphysics came back again--came backwith respect to the rain and the sun, the gravel in their shoes, theflowers on the grass--with respect to everything. When they looked atthe candle burning, they asked themselves whether the light is in theobject or in our eyes. Since stars may have disappeared by the timetheir radiance has reached us, we admire, perhaps, things that have noexistence. 

Having found a Raspail cigarette in the depths of a waistcoat, theycrumbled it over some water, and the camphor moved about. Here, then, ismovement in matter. One degree more of movement might bring on life!

But if matter in movement were sufficient to create beings, they wouldnot be so varied. For in the beginning lands, water, men, and plants hadno existence. What, then, is this primordial matter, which we have neverseen, which is no portion of created things, and which yet has producedthem all?

Sometimes they wanted a book. Dumouchel, tired of assisting them, nolonger answered their letters. They enthusiastically took up the newquestion, especially Pécuchet. His need of truth became a burningthirst. 

Moved by Bouvard's preachings, he gave up spiritualism, but soon resumedit again only to abandon it once more, and, clasping his head with hishands, he would exclaim:

"Oh, doubt! doubt! I would much prefer nothingness. "

Bouvard perceived the insufficiency of materialism, and tried to stop atthat, declaring, however, that he had lost his head over it. 

They began with arguments on a solid basis, but the basis gave way; andsuddenly they had no longer a single idea--just as a bird takes wing themoment we wish to catch it. 

During the winter evenings they chatted in the museum at the corner ofthe fire, staring at the coals. The wind, whistling in the corridor, shook the window-panes; the black masses of trees swayed to and fro, andthe dreariness of the night intensified the seriousness of theirthoughts. 

Bouvard from time to time walked towards the further end of theapartment and then came back. The torches and the pans on the wallsthrew slanting shadows on the ground; and the St. Peter, seen inprofile, showed on the ceiling the silhouette of his nose, resembling amonstrous hunting-horn. 

They found it hard to move about amongst the various articles, andBouvard, by not taking precautions, often knocked against the statue. With its big eyes, its drooping lip, and its air of a drunkard, it alsoannoyed Pécuchet. For a long time he had wished to get rid of it, butthrough carelessness put it off from day to day. 

One evening, in the middle of a dispute on the monad, Bouvard hit hisbig toe against St. Peter's thumb, and turning on him in a rage, exclaimed:

"He plagues me, this jackanapes! Let us toss him out!"

It was difficult to do this over the staircase. They flung open thewindow, and gently tried to tip St. Peter over the edge. Pécuchet, onhis knees, attempted to raise his heels, while Bouvard pressed againsthis shoulders. The old codger in stone did not budge. After this theyhad recourse to the halberd as a lever, and finally succeeded instretching him out quite straight. Then, after a see-saw motion, hedashed into the open space, his tiara going before him. A heavy crashreached their ears, and next day they found him broken into a dozenpieces in the old pit for composts. 

An hour afterwards the notary came in, bringing good news to them. Alady in the neighbourhood was willing to advance a thousand crown-pieceson the security of a mortgage of their farm, and, as they wereexpressing their satisfaction at the proposal:

"Pardon me. She adds, as a condition, that you should sell her theEcalles meadow for fifteen hundred francs. The loan will be advancedthis very day. The money is in my office. "

They were both disposed to give way. 

Bouvard ended by saying: "Good God! be it so, then. "

"Agreed, " said Marescot. And then he mentioned the lender's name: it wasMadame Bordin. 

"I suspected 'twas she!" exclaimed Pécuchet. 

Bouvard, who felt humiliated, had not a word to say. 

She or some one else--what did it matter? The principal thing was to getout of their difficulties. 

When they received the money (they were to get the sum for the Ecalleslater) they immediately paid all their bills; and they were returning totheir abode when, at the corner of the market-place, they were stoppedby Farmer Gouy. 

He had been on his way to their house to apprise them of a misfortune. The wind, the night before, had blown down twenty apple trees into thefarmyard, overturned the boilery, and carried away the roof of the barn. 

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in estimating the amount ofthe damage, and they continued the inquiry on the following day with theassistance of the carpenter, the mason, and the slater. The repairswould cost at least about eighteen hundred francs. 

Then, in the evening, Gouy presented himself. Marianne herself had, ashort time before, told him all about the sale of the Ecalles meadow--apiece of land with a splendid yield, suitable in every way, and scarcelyrequiring any cultivation at all, the best bit in the whole farm!--andhe asked for a reduction. 

The two gentlemen refused it. The matter was submitted to the justice ofthe peace, who decided in favour of the farmer. The loss of the Ecalles, which was valued at two thousand francs per acre, caused him an annualdepreciation of seventy, and he was sure to win in the courts. 

Their fortune was diminished. What were they to do? And soon thequestion would be, How were they to live?

They both sat down to table full of discouragement. Marcel knew nothingabout it in the kitchen. His dinner this time was better than theirs. 

The soup was like dish-water, the rabbit had a bad smell, thekidney-beans were underdone, the plates were dirty, and at dessertBouvard burst into a passion and threatened to break everything onMarcel's head. 

"Let us be philosophers, " said Pécuchet. "A little less money, theintrigues of a woman, the clumsiness of a servant--what is it but this?You are too much immersed in matter. "

"But when it annoys me?" said Bouvard. 

"For my part, I don't admit it, " rejoined Pécuchet. 

He had recently been reading an analysis of Berkeley, and added:

"I deny extension, time, space, even substance! for the true substanceis the mind-perceiving qualities. "

"Quite so, " said Bouvard; "but get rid of the world, and you'll have noproof left of God's existence. "

Pécuchet uttered a cry, and a long one too, although he had a cold inhis head, caused by the iodine of potassium, and a continualfeverishness increased his excitement. Bouvard, being uneasy about him, sent for the doctor. 

Vaucorbeil ordered orange-syrup with the iodine, and for a later stagecinnabar baths. 

"What's the use?" replied Pécuchet. "One day or another the form willdie out. The essence does not perish. "

"No doubt, " said the physician, "matter is indestructible. However----"

"Ah, no!--ah, no! The indestructible thing is being. This body which isthere before me--yours, doctor--prevents me from knowing your real self, and is, so to speak, only a garment, or rather a mask. "

Vaucorbeil believed he was mad. 

"Good evening. Take care of your mask. "

Pécuchet did not stop. He procured an introduction to the Hegelianphilosophy, and wished to explain it to Bouvard. 

"All that is rational is real. There is not even any reality save theidea. The laws of the mind are laws of the universe; the reason of manis identical with that of God. "

Bouvard pretended to understand. 

"Therefore the absolute is, at the same time, the subject and theobject, the unity whereby all differences come to be settled. Thus, things that are contradictory are reconciled. The shadow permits thelight; heat and cold intermingled produce temperature. Organismmaintains itself only by the destruction of organism; everywhere thereis a principle that disunites, a principle that connects. "

They were on the hillock, and the curé was walking past the gateway withhis breviary in his hand. 

Pécuchet asked him to come in, as he desired to finish the explanationof Hegel, and to get some notion of what the curé would say about it. 

The man of the cassock sat down beside them, and Pécuchet broached thequestion of Christianity. 

"No religion has established this truth so well: 'Nature is but a momentof the idea. '"

"A moment of the idea!" murmured the priest in astonishment. 

"Why, yes. God in taking a visible envelope showed his consubstantialunion with it. "

"With nature--oh! oh!"

"By His decease He bore testimony to the essence of death; therefore, death was in Him, made and makes part of God. "

The ecclesiastic frowned. 

"No blasphemies! it was for the salvation of the human race that Heendured sufferings. "

"Error! We look at death in the case of the individual, where, no doubt, it is a calamity; but with relation to things it is different. Do notseparate mind from matter. "

"However, sir, before the Creation----"

"There was no Creation. It has always existed. Otherwise this would be anew being adding itself to the Divine idea, which is absurd. "

The priest arose; business matters called him elsewhere. 

"I flatter myself I've floored him!" said Pécuchet. "One word more. Since the existence of the world is but a continual passage from life todeath, and from death to life, so far from everything existing, nothingis. But everything is becoming--do you understand?"

"Yes; I do understand--or rather I don't. "

Idealism in the end exasperated Bouvard. 

"I don't want any more of it. The famous _cogito_ stupefies me. Ideas ofthings are taken for the things themselves. What we understand veryslightly is explained by means of words which we don't understand atall--substance, extension, force, matter, and soul. So much abstraction, imagination. As for God, it is impossible to know in what way He is, ifHe is at all. Formerly, He used to cause the wind, the thunderstorms, revolutions. At present, He is diminishing. Besides, I don't see theutility of Him. "

"And morality--in this state of affairs. "

"Ah! so much the worse. "

"It lacks a foundation in fact, " said Pécuchet. 

And he remained silent, driven into a corner by premises which he hadhimself laid down. It was a surprise--a crushing bit of logic. 

Bouvard no longer even believed in matter. 

The certainty that nothing exists (deplorable though it may be) is nonethe less a certainty. Few persons are capable of possessing it. Thistranscendency on their part inspired them with pride, and they wouldhave liked to make a display of it. An opportunity presented itself. 

One morning, while they were going to buy tobacco, they saw a crowd infront of Langlois' door. The public conveyance from Falaise wassurrounded, and there was much excitement about a convict named Touache, who was wandering about the country. The conductor had met him atCroix-Verte between two gendarmes, and the people of Chavignollesbreathed a sigh of relief. 

Girbal and the captain remained on the green; then the justice of thepeace made his appearance, curious to obtain information, and after himcame M. Marescot in a velvet cap and sheepskin slippers. 

Langlois invited them to honour his shop with their presence; they wouldbe more at their ease; and in spite of the customers and the loudringing of the bell, the gentlemen continued their discussion as toTouache's offences. 

"Goodness gracious!" said Bouvard, "he had bad instincts. That was thewhole of it!"

"They are conquered by virtue, " replied the notary. 

"But if a person has not virtue?"

And Bouvard positively denied free-will. 

"Yet, " said the captain, "I can do what I like. I am free, for instance, to move my leg. "

"No, sir, for you have a motive for moving it. "

The captain looked out for something to say in reply, and found nothing. But Girbal discharged this shaft:

"A Republican speaking against liberty. That is funny. "

"A droll story, " chimed in Langlois. 

Bouvard turned on him with this question:

"Why don't you give all you possess to the poor?"

The grocer cast an uneasy glance over his entire shop. 

"Look here, now, I'm not such an idiot! I keep it for myself. "

"If you were St. Vincent de Paul, you would act differently, since youwould have his character. You obey your own. Therefore, you are notfree. "

"That's a quibble!" replied the company in chorus. 

Bouvard did not flinch, and said, pointing towards the scales on thecounter:

"It will remain motionless so long as each scale is empty. So with thewill; and the oscillation of the scales between two weights which seemequal represents the strain on our mind when it is hesitating betweendifferent motives, till the moment when the more powerful motive getsthe better of it and leads it to a determination. "

"All that, " said Girbal, "makes no difference for Touache, and does notprevent him from being a downright vicious rogue. "

Pécuchet addressed the company:

"Vices are properties of Nature, like floods, tempests. "

The notary stopped, and raising himself on tiptoe at every word:

"I consider your system one of complete immorality. It gives scope toevery kind of excess, excuses crimes, and declares the guilty innocent. "

"Exactly, " replied Bouvard; "the wretch who follows his appetites isright from his own point of view just as much as the honest man wholistens to reason. "

"Do not defend monsters!"

"Wherefore monsters? When a person is born blind, an idiot, a homicide, this appears to us to be opposed to order, as if order were known to us, as if Nature were striving towards an end. "

"You then raise a question about Providence?"

"I do raise a question about it. "

"Look rather to history, " exclaimed Pécuchet. "Recall to mind theassassinations of kings, the massacres amongst peoples, the dissensionsin families, the affliction of individuals. "

"And at the same time, " added Bouvard, for they mutually excited eachother, "this Providence takes care of little birds, and makes the clawsof crayfishes grow again. Oh! if by Providence you mean a law whichrules everything, I am of the same opinion, and even more so. "

"However, sir, " said the notary, "there are principles. "

"What stuff is that you're talking? A science, according to Condillac, is so much the better the less need it has of them. They do nothing butsummarise acquired knowledge, and they bring us back to thoseconceptions which are exactly the disputable ones. "

"Have you, like us, " went on Pécuchet, "scrutinised and explored thearcana of metaphysics?"

"It is true, gentlemen--it is true!"

Then the company broke up. 

But Coulon, drawing them aside, told them in a paternal tone that he wasno devotee certainly, and that he even hated the Jesuits. However, hedid not go as far as they did. Oh, no! certainly not. And at the cornerof the green they passed in front of the captain, who, as he lighted hispipe, growled:

"All the same, I do what I like, by God!"

Bouvard and Pécuchet gave utterance on other occasions to theirscandalous paradoxes. They threw doubt on the honesty of men, thechastity of women, the intelligence of government, the good sense of thepeople--in short, they sapped the foundations of everything. 

Foureau was provoked by their behaviour, and threatened them withimprisonment if they went on with such discourses. 

The evidence of their own superiority caused them pain. As theymaintained immoral propositions, they must needs be immoral: calumnieswere invented about them. Then a pitiable faculty developed itself intheir minds, that of observing stupidity and no longer tolerating it. Trifling things made them feel sad: the advertisements in thenewspapers, the profile of a shopkeeper, an idiotic remark overheard bychance. Thinking over what was said in their own village, and on thefact that there were even as far as the Antipodes other Coulons, otherMarescots, other Foureaus, they felt, as it were, the heaviness of allthe earth weighing down upon them. 

They no longer went out of doors, and received no visitors. 

One afternoon a dialogue arose, outside the front entrance, betweenMarcel and a gentleman who wore dark spectacles and a hat with a largebrim. It was the academician Larsoneur. He observed a curtainhalf-opening and doors being shut. This step on his part was an attemptat reconciliation; and he went away in a rage, directing the man-servantto tell his masters that he regarded them as a pair of common fellows. 

Bouvard and Pécuchet did not care about this. The world was diminishingin importance, and they saw it as if through a cloud that had descendedfrom their brains over their eyes. 

Is it not, moreover, an illusion, a bad dream? Perhaps, on the whole, prosperity and misfortune are equally balanced. But the welfare of thespecies does not console the individual. 

"And what do others matter to me?" said Pécuchet. 

His despair afflicted Bouvard. It was he who had brought his friend tothis pass, and the ruinous condition of their house kept their grieffresh by daily irritations. 

In order to revive their spirits they tried discussions, and prescribedtasks for themselves, but speedily fell back into greater sluggishness, into more profound discouragement. 

At the end of each meal they would remain with their elbows on the tablegroaning with a lugubrious air. 

Marcel would give them a scared look, and then go back to his kitchen, where he stuffed himself in solitude. 

About the middle of midsummer they received a circular announcing themarriage of Dumouchel with Madame Olympe-Zulma Poulet, a widow. 

"God bless him!"

And they recalled the time when they were happy. 

Why were they no longer following the harvesters? Where were the dayswhen they went through the different farm-houses looking everywhere forantiquities? Nothing now gave them such hours of delight as those whichwere occupied with the distillery and with literature. A gulf laybetween them and that time. It was irrevocable. 

They thought of taking a walk as of yore through the fields, wanderedtoo far, and got lost. The sky was dotted with little fleecy clouds, thewind was shaking the tiny bells of the oats; a stream was purling alongthrough a meadow--and then, all at once, an infectious odour made themhalt, and they saw on the pebbles between the thorn trees the putridcarcass of a dog. 

The four limbs were dried up. The grinning jaws disclosed teeth of ivoryunder the bluish lips; in place of the stomach there was a mass ofearth-coloured flesh which seemed to be palpitating with the vermin thatswarmed all over it. It writhed, with the sun's rays falling on it, under the gnawing of so many mouths, in this intolerable stench--astench which was fierce and, as it were, devouring. 

Yet wrinkles gathered on Bouvard's forehead, and his eyes filled withtears. 

Pécuchet said in a stoical fashion, "One day we shall be like that. "

The idea of death had taken hold of them. They talked about it on theirway back. 

After all, it has no existence. We pass away into the dew, into thebreeze, into the stars. We become part of the sap of trees, thebrilliance of precious stones, the plumage of birds. We give back toNature what she lent to each of us, and the nothingness before us is nota bit more frightful than the nothingness behind us. 

They tried to picture it to themselves under the form of an intensenight, a bottomless pit, a continual swoon. Anything would be betterthan such an existence--monotonous, absurd, and hopeless. 

They enumerated their unsatisfied wants. Bouvard had always wished forhorses, equipages, a big supply of Burgundy, and lovely women ready toaccommodate him in a splendid habitation. Pécuchet's ambition wasphilosophical knowledge. Now, the vastest of problems, that whichcontains all others, can be solved in one minute. When would it come, then? "As well to make an end of it at once. "

"Just as you like, " said Bouvard. 

And they investigated the question of suicide. 

Where is the evil of casting aside a burden which is crushing you? andof doing an act harmful to nobody? If it offended God, should we havethis power? It is not cowardice, though people say so, and to scoff athuman pride is a fine thing, even at the price of injury to oneself--thething that men regard most highly. 

They deliberated as to the different kinds of death. Poison makes yousuffer. In order to cut your throat you require too much courage. In thecase of asphyxia, people often fail to effect their object. 

Finally, Pécuchet carried up to the garret two ropes belonging to theirgymnastic apparatus. Then, having fastened them to the same cross-beamof the roof, he let a slip-knot hang down from the end of each, and drewtwo chairs underneath to reach the ropes. 

This method was the one they selected. 

They asked themselves what impression it would cause in the district, what would become of their library, their papers, their collections. Thethought of death made them feel tenderly about themselves. However, theydid not abandon their project, and by dint of talking about it they grewaccustomed to the idea. 

On the evening of the 24th of December, between ten and eleven o'clock, they sat thinking in the museum, both differently attired. Bouvard worea blouse over his knitted waistcoat, and Pécuchet, through economy, hadnot left off his monk's habit for the past three months. 

As they were very hungry (for Marcel, having gone out at daybreak, hadnot reappeared), Bouvard thought it would be a healthful thing for himto drink a quart bottle of brandy, and for Pécuchet to take some tea. 

While he was lifting up the kettle he spilled some water on the floor. 

"Awkward!" exclaimed Bouvard. 

Then, thinking the infusion too small, he wanted to strengthen it withtwo additional spoonfuls. 

"This will be execrable, " said Pécuchet. 

"Not at all. "

And while each of them was trying to draw the work-box closer tohimself, the tray upset and fell down. One of the cups was smashed--thelast of their fine porcelain tea-service. 

Bouvard turned pale. 

"Go on! Confusion! Don't put yourself about!"

"Truly, a great misfortune! I attribute it to my father. "

"Your natural father, " corrected Pécuchet, with a sneer. 

"Ha! you insult me!"

"No; but I am tiring you out! I see it plainly! Confess it!"

And Pécuchet was seized with anger, or rather with madness. So wasBouvard. The pair began shrieking, the one excited by hunger, the otherby alcohol. Pécuchet's throat at length emitted no sound save arattling. 

"It is infernal, a life like this. I much prefer death. Adieu!"

He snatched up the candlestick and rushed out, slamming the door behindhim. 

Bouvard, plunged in darkness, found some difficulty in opening it. Heran after Pécuchet, and followed him up to the garret. 

The candle was on the floor, and Pécuchet was standing on one of thechairs, with a rope in his hand. The spirit of imitation got the betterof Bouvard. 

"Wait for me!"

And he had just got up on the other chair when, suddenly stopping:

"Why, we have not made our wills!"

"Hold on! That's quite true!"

Their breasts swelled with sobs. They leaned against the skylight totake breath. 

The air was chilly and a multitude of stars glittered in a sky of inkyblackness. 

The whiteness of the snow that covered the earth was lost in the haze ofthe horizon. 

They perceived, close to the ground, little lights, which, as they drewnear, looked larger, all reaching up to the side of the church. 

Curiosity drove them to the spot. It was the midnight mass. These lightscame from shepherds' lanterns. Some of them were shaking their cloaksunder the porch. 

The serpent snorted; the incense smoked. Glasses suspended along thenave represented three crowns of many-coloured flames; and, at the endof the perspective at the two sides of the tabernacle, immense waxtapers were pointed with red flames. Above the heads of the crowd andthe broad-brimmed hats of the women, beyond the chanters, the priestcould be distinguished in his chasuble of gold. To his sharp voiceresponded the strong voices of the men who filled up the gallery, andthe wooden vault quivered above its stone arches. The walls weredecorated with the stations of the Cross. In the midst of the choir, before the altar, a lamb was lying down, with its feet under its bellyand its ears erect. 

The warm temperature imparted to them both a strange feeling of comfort, and their thoughts, which had been so tempestuous only a short timebefore, became peaceful, like waves when they are calmed. 

They listened to the Gospel and the _Credo_, and watched the movementsof the priest. Meanwhile, the old, the young, the beggar women in rags, the mothers in high caps, the strong young fellows with tufts of fairdown on their faces, were all praying, absorbed in the same deep joy, and saw the body of the Infant Christ shining, like a sun, upon thestraw of a stable. This faith on the part of others touched Bouvard inspite of his reason, and Pécuchet in spite of the hardness of his heart. 

There was a silence; every back was bent, and, at the tinkling of abell, the little lamb bleated. 

The host was displayed by the priest, as high as possible between histwo hands. Then burst forth a strain of gladness inviting the wholeworld to the feet of the King of Angels. Bouvard and Pécuchetinvoluntarily joined in it, and they felt, as it were, a new dawn risingin their souls. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Roughly speaking, about 93 acres. --TRANSLATOR. 

[2] _Cuscute_--dodder. 

[3] One hectare contains 2 acres 1 rood 38 perches. --TRANSLATOR. 

[4] The [Text missing in original. --_Transcriber. _]

[5] Raspail, the author of the work here referred to, was called in toattend Gustave Flaubert's sister Caroline before her death in1846. --TRANSLATOR. 

[6] A decalitre contains over two gallons. --TRANSLATOR. 

[7] A myriamètre is over six miles. --TRANSLATOR. 

[8] This would, roughly speaking, be about eleven yards. --TRANSLATOR. 

[9] _Oui, prince, je languis, je brûle pour Thésée-- Je l'aime!_

[10] The Vinegar Merchant's Wheelbarrow. 

[11] _Des flammes de les yeux inonde ma paupière. Chante-moi quelque chant, comme parfois, le soir, Tu m'en chantais, avec des pleurs dans ton oeil noir. _

[12] _Soyons heureux! buvons! car la coupe est remplie, Car cette heure est à moi, et le reste est folie!_

[13] _N'est-ce pas qu'il est doux D'aimer, et savoir qu'on vous aime à genoux?_

[14] _Oh! laisse-moi dormir et rêver sur ton sein, Doña Sol, ma beauté, mon amour!_

[15] _Que dans tous vos discours la passion emue Aille chercher le coeur, l'échauffe et le remue. _

[16] _La savate_--a military practice of beating with an old shoesoldiers unskilful at drill. --TRANSLATOR. 

[17] _A nous l'animal timide! Atteignons le cerf rapide! Oui! nous vaincons! Courons! courons! courons!_

 +------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's Notes: | | | |Page 12: Bartholemée _sic_ | | | |Page 15: Bartholemée _sic_ | | | |Page 36: The text of the second footnote on this page is | |missing in the original edition of the book. | | | |Page 111: Single opening quote changed to double quote | |(. . . Returned Pécuchet, "has disappeared. . . ") | | | |Page 114: Heurteaux amended to Heurtaux | | | |Page 133: Heurteaux amended to Heurtaux | | | |Page 150: Full stop added after "well-balanced idea" | | | |Page 167: comma added after _Mauprat_ | | | |Page 218: abbê amended to abbé | | | |Page 221: parlimentary amended to parliamentary | | | |Page 250: Loadstone _sic_ | | | |Page 259: Full stop added after "imagination" | | | |Page 276: Comma added after "Yet" | | | |Small discrepancies between the Table of Contents and | |the chapter headings have been retained. | | | |Hyphenation has been standardised. Where the hyphenated and | |unhyphenated version of a word occur an equal number of | |times, both have been retained: cocoa-nuts/cocoanuts; | |cross-beam/crossbeam; foot-warmer/footwarmer; | |night-cap/nightcap; sugar-loaves/sugarloaves; | |tri-coloured/tricoloured; wash-house/washhouse. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+