Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 1

Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 1 Page 7

by Gustave Flaubert

  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.

  Pecuchet 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. Pecuchetbecame 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 Pecuchet'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 Pecuchet, the row of treesseparating them from him.

  "Is it true," said she, "you are going to fight?"

  Pecuchet 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!"

  Pecuchet, 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 Pecuchet 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.

  Pecuchet 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 pai
d her a return visit, and repeatedit, making up his mind to woo and win her.

  Since the day when Pecuchet 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.

  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 Pecuchet'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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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!

  Melie 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.

  Melie did not faint or let her handkerchief fall, and Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet.

  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 Melie'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.

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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.
<
br />   Bouvard arrived soon for dinner.

  The meal passed in silence, each of them being afraid of betrayinghimself, while Melie attended them with her usual impassiveness.

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet.

  "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 Pecuchet had risen several times, and seemed to be in pain.

  Bouvard asked him what was the matter, and thereupon Pecuchet, 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?"

  Pecuchet became redder than before, and said in a still lower tone:

  "It can be only Melie."

  Bouvard remained stupefied.

  The first thing to do was to send the young woman away.

  She protested with an air of candour.

  Pecuchet'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 Pecuchet. "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, Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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.

  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. Pecuchetclambered 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 Abbe 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 Pecuchet, 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-Rose, socalled
from the captain who surprised Fecamp 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.

  Pecuchet 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.

  Pecuchet, 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 chateau 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. Pecuchet 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 Laverriere, 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Laverriere had made use for the purpose of noting down inan album the direct communications of Louis XII., Clemence 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, Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet reflect. He took into his library the_Magnetiser's Guide_, by Montacabere, 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 Pecuchet: "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 Montacabere'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, Pecuchet 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; Mere Varin, whose encephaloid under the collar-bone required,in order to nourish her, plasters of meat; a gouty patient, PereLemoine, 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 Barbee, the daughter of Pere Barbee, 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. Pecuchet 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.

  Pecuchet 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. Montacabere 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. PereGouy 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Puysegur, 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 _seance_ 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.

  Pecuchet made his appearance. "At your service, gentlemen."

  And they saw at the end of the garden, under the Edouin pear tree, anumber of persons sea
ted.

  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. Mere Varin, to hide hertumour, wore a shawl with many folds. Pere Lemoine, his feetstockingless in his old shoes, had his crutches under his knees; and LaBarbee, 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Barbee, 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 Pecuchet, 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Graecum_ a term which isto be found in pharmacy.

  Then they accosted Pere 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 Pecuchet's indignation. He evenventured to pretend that La Barbee 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 Barbee 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 _seance_ was over. The patients went away.

  Bouvard and Pecuchet, on the whole, had not succeeded. Was this due tothe temperature, or to the smell of tobacco, or to the Abbe 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 abbe 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 cure 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 abbe 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 Pecuchet.

  "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 Pecuchet. 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 cure, 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 Pecuchet 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 e
xplanationcommonplace 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 Pecuchet'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 Pecuchet 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!

  Pecuchet, 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.

  Pecuchet, whose exultation was increasing, desired to make a corpseappear.

  Under the Directory a man in the Rue de l'Echiquier 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, Pecuchet 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 ofPere 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 Pecuchet, 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 Bechet--they shouldoccupy themselves with Bechet 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.

  Pecuchet rapidly breathed forth the words, which had been jotted down ona piece of pasteboard:

  "Ischyros, Athanatos, Adonai, Sadai, Eloy, Messiasoes" (the litany was along one), "I implore thee, I look to thee, I command thee, O Bechet!"

  Then, lowering his voice:

  "Where art thou, Bechet? Bechet! Bechet! Bechet!"

  Bouvard sank into the armchair, and he was very pleased at not seeingBechet, 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 Pecuchet'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 Abbe 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 Pecuchet; 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.Pecuchet 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.

  Pecuchet, 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 Barbee. 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. Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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."

  Pecuchet, 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.

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet, 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 Pecuchet, 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, Fenelon; 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;Pecuchet from M. Cousin, Thomas Reid, and Gerando. 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 Pecuchet.

  "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 Pecuchet, "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 Pecuchet. "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 Pecuchet 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?"

  Pecuchet 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. Pecuchet 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."

  Pecuchet was astonished. "Where is this found?"

  "In Gerando." And Bouvard tapped him lightly on the stomach.

  "Make an end of it, then," said Pecuchet.

  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," Pecuchet 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 _virtu_ 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."

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet. "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 Pecuchet, 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 Pecuchet. 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 Maitre 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 Pecuchet 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; Pecuchet 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 movemen
t 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 Pecuchet. 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 Pecuchet. 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. Pecuchet, 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 Pecuchet.

  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 Pecuchet. "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 Pecuchet.

  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."

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet. "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."

  Pecuchet 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 cure was walking past the gateway withhis breviary in his hand.

  Pecuchet asked him to come in, as he desired to finish the explanationof Hegel, and to get some notion of what the cure would say about it.

  The man of the cassock sat down beside them, and Pecuchet 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."

&n
bsp; 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 Pecuchet. "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 Pecuchet.

  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."

  Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet. "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 Pecuchet, "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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet.

  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.

  Pecuchet 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. Pecuchet'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, Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet, 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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet.

  "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 Pecuchet, with a sneer.

  "Ha! you insult me!"

  "No; but I am tiring you out! I see it plainly! Confess it!"

  And Pecuchet was seized with anger, or rather with madness. So wasBouvard. The pair began shrieking, the one excited by hunger, the otherby alcohol. Pecuchet'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 Pecuchet, and followed him up to the garret.

  The candle was on the floor, and Pecuchet 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 Pecuchet 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 Pecuchetinvoluntarily 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 myriametre is over six miles.--TRANSLATOR.

  [8] This would, roughly speaking, be about eleven yards.--TRANSLATOR.

  [9] _Oui, prince, je languis, je brule pour Thesee-- Je l'aime!_

  [10] The Vinegar Merchant's Wheelbarrow.

  [11] _Des flammes de les yeux inonde ma paupiere. 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 a moi, et le reste est folie!_

  [13] _N'est-ce pas qu'il est doux D'aimer, et savoir qu'on vous aime a genoux?_

  [14] _Oh! laisse-moi dormir et rever sur ton sein, Dona Sol, ma beaute, mon amour!_

  [15] _Que dans tous vos discours la passion emue Aille chercher le coeur, l'echauffe 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: Bartholemee _sic_ | | | |Page 15: Bartholemee _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 Pecuchet, "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: abbe amended to abbe | | | |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. | | | +------------------------------------------------------------+

 

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