Bouvard and Pecuchet

by Gustave Flaubert

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

  As his mind was fixed on intestinal worms, Pécuchet noticed a singular spot on Madame Bordin's cheek. The doctor had for a long time been treating86 it with bitters. Round at first as a twenty-sou piece, this spot had enlarged and formed a red circle. They offered to cure it for her. She consented, but made it a condition that the ointment should be applied by Bouvard. She took a seat before the window, unfastened the upper portion of her corset, and remained with her cheek turned up, looking at him with a glance of her eye which would have been dangerous were it not for Pécuchet's presence. In the prescribed doses, and in spite of the horror felt with regard to mercury, they administered calomel. One month afterwards Madame Bordin was cured. She became a propagandist in their behalf, and the tax-collector, the mayor's secretary, the mayor himself, and everybody in Chavignolles sucked camphor by the aid of quills.

  However, the hunchback did not get straight; the collector gave up his cigarette; it stopped up his chest twice as much. Foureau made complaints that the pills of aloes gave him hemorrhoids. Bouvard got a stomachache, and Pécuchet fearful headaches. They lost confidence in Raspail, but took care to say nothing about it, fearing that they might lessen their own importance.

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

  They accompanied the doctor to the houses of the poor, and then consulted their books. The symptoms noticed by the writers were not those which they had just observed. As for the names of diseases, they were Latin, Greek, French—a medley of every language. They are to be counted by thousands; and Linnæus's system of classification, with its genera87 and its species, is exceedingly convenient; but how was the species to be fixed? Then they got lost in the philosophy of medicine. They raved about the life-principle of Van Helmont, vitalism, Brownism, organicism, inquired of the doctor whence comes the germ of scrofula, towards what point the infectious miasma inclines, and the means in all cases of disease to distinguish the cause from its effects.

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

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

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

  Nevertheless, they gave advice, got on the moral hobby again, and had the assurance to auscultate. Their imagination began to ferment. They wrote to the king, in order that there might be established in Calvados an institute of nurses for the sick, of which they would be the professors.

  They would go to the apothecary at Bayeux (the one at Falaise had always a grudge against them on account of the jujube affair), and they gave him directions 88to manufacture, like the ancients, pila purgatoria, that is to say, medicaments in the shape of pellets, which, by dint of handling, become absorbed in the individual.

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

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

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

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

  "This is a veritable murder!"

  "Why?"

  "You perforate the intestine, since typhoid fever is an alteration of its follicular membrane."89

  "Not always!"

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

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

  "But regimen weakens the vital principle."

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

  Pécuchet got confused.

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

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

  "No matter, he requires it!"

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

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

  "Let systems alone!" said the doctor.

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

  "By no means; but by observing——"

  "But if one observes badly?"

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

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

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

  Without replying, Vaucorbeil stooped towards Gouy, and raising his voice:

  "Which of us two do you select as your doctor?"90

  Mutually becoming afflicted, they looked at their tongues

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

  "Very well," said Vaucorbeil, "since you hesitate between a man furnished with a diploma——"

  Pécuchet sneered.

  "Why do you laugh?"

  "Because a diploma is not always an argument."

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

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

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

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

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

  Gouy, next day, had a pain in his abdomen. This might be due to the ingestion of the food. Perhaps Vaucorbeil was not mistaken. A physician, after all, ought to have some knowledge of this! And a feeling of remorse took possession of Pécuchet! 91He was afraid lest he might turn out a homicide.

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

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

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

  "Enough of manikins!"

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

  But Bouvard was tired of medicine.

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

  However, all this reading had disturbed their brains.

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

  Pécuchet caught lumbago while lopping the elm trees, and vomited after his dinner—a circumstance which frightened him very much. Then, noticing that his colour was rather yellow, suspected a liver complaint, and asked himself, "Have I pains?" and ended by having them.92

  Mutually becoming afflicted, they looked at their tongues, felt each other's pulses, made a change as to the use of mineral waters, purged themselves—and dreaded cold, heat, wind, rain, flies, and principally currents of air.

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

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

  Their ideal was Cornaro, that Venetian gentleman who by the regulation of his diet attained to an extreme old age. Without actually imitating him, they might take the same precautions; and Pécuchet took down from his bookshelves a Manual of Hygiene by Doctor Morin.

  "How had they managed to live till now?"

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

  Every kind of meat had its inconveniences. Puddings and sausages, red herrings, lobsters, and game are "refractory." The bigger a fish is, the more gelatine it contains, and consequently the heavier it is. Vegetables cause acidity, macaroni makes people dream; cheeses, "considered generally, are difficult of digestion." A glass of water in the morning is "dangerous." Everything you eat or drink being accompanied by a similar warning, or rather by these93 words: "Bad!" "Beware of the abuse of it!" "Does not suit everyone!" Why bad? Wherein is the abuse of it? How are you to know whether a thing like this suits you?

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

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

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

  Up to that time they had believed in the unhealthiness of damp places. Not at all! Casper declares them less deadly than others. One does not bathe in the sea without refreshing one's skin. Bégin advises people to cast themselves into it while they are perspiring freely. Wine taken neat after soup is considered excellent for the stomach; Levy lays the blame on it of impairing the teeth. Lastly, the flannel waistcoat—that safeguard, that preserver of health, that palladium cherished by Bouvard and inherent to Pécuchet, without any evasions or fear of the opinions94 of others—is considered unsuitable by some authors for men of a plethoric and sanguine temperament!

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

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

  "Another piece?"

  "Yes, I will."

  "So will I."

  "Your health."

  "Yours."

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

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

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

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

  Then, as in former days, they went to drink their coffee and brandy on the hillock.95

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

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

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

  "What a quantity!" exclaimed Bouvard.

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

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

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

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

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

  Then Pécuchet, turning him in the direction of the Great Bear, showed him the polar star; then Cassiopeia, whose constellation forms a Y; Vega, of96 the Lyra constellation—all scintillating; and at the lower part of the horizon, the red Aldebaran.

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

  Pécuchet went on:

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

  "However, the sun is motionless."

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

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

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

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

  At last they asked one another whether there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be gigantic, those of Mars of middle stature, those of Venus very small. Unless it should be everywhere the same thing. There are merchants up there, and97 gendarmes; they trade there; they fight there; they dethrone kings there.

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

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

  Pécuchet replied:

  "If ours, in its turn, kicks the bucket, the citizens of the stars will not be more moved than we are now. Ideas like this may pull down your pride."

  "What is the object of all this?"

  "Perhaps it has no object."

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

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

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