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

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

Author: Gustave Flaubert


        
Release date: April 7, 2008 [eBook #25014]

Language: English

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  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in        |
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[Illustration: "NO, MY LITTLE ANGEL! DON'T BE AFRAID!"]


BOUVARD AND PÉCUCHET

_A TRAGI-COMIC NOVEL OF
BOURGEOIS LIFE_

BY

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT


_VOLUME IX._


SIMON P. MAGEE
PUBLISHER
CHICAGO, ILL.

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY

M. WALTER DUNNE

_Entered at Stationer's Hall, London_




CONTENTS


CHAPTER I.                                  PAGE
  KINDRED SOULS                                1

CHAPTER II.
  EXPERIMENTS IN AGRICULTURE                  26

CHAPTER III.
  AMATEUR CHEMISTS                            72

CHAPTER IV.
  RESEARCHES IN ARCHÆOLOGY                   123

CHAPTER V.
  ROMANCE AND THE DRAMA                      163

CHAPTER VI.
  REVOLT OF THE PEOPLE                       191

CHAPTER VII.
  "UNLUCKY IN LOVE"                          228

CHAPTER VIII.
  NEW DIVERSIONS                             242




ILLUSTRATIONS


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

MUTUALLY BECOMING AFFLICTED, THEY LOOKED AT
THEIR TONGUES                                       90

HE WAS ABOUT TO CLASP HER IN HIS ARMS              234




BOUVARD AND PÉCUCHET




CHAPTER I.

KINDRED SOULS.


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

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

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

Two men made their appearance.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He kept whistling continually with the tips of his lips.

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

This exclamation escaped him:

"How pleasant it would be in the country!"

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

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

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

Suddenly, a drunken man staggered along the footpath; and the pair began
a political discussion on the subject of working-men. Their opinions
were similar, though perhaps Bouvard was rather more liberal in his
views.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ecclesiastic slowly descended the avenue, along which lean elm trees
were placed as landmarks, and Bouvard, when he no longer saw the
priest's three-cornered head-piece, expressed his relief; for he hated
Jesuits. Pécuchet, without absolving them from blame, exhibited some
respect for religion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He had a fancy for trying balancing feats with a billiard-cue and two
ivory balls, such as Barberou, one of his friends, had performed. They
invariably fell, and, rolling along the floor between people's legs, got
lost in some distant corner. The waiter, who had to rise every time to
search for them on all-fours under the benches, ended by making
complaints. Pécuchet picked a quarrel with him; the coffee-house keeper
came on the scene, but Pécuchet would listen to no excuses, and even
cavilled over the amount consumed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What!" And Pécuchet cast down his head, frightened at the idea of no
longer having his healthful flannel waistcoat.

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

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

Bouvard's room, the floor of which was well waxed, and which had
curtains of cotton cambric and mahogany furniture, had the advantage of
a balcony overlooking the river. The two principal ornaments were a
liqueur-frame in the middle of the chest of drawers, and, in a row
beside the glass, daguerreotypes representing his friends. An oil
painting occupied the alcove.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet descended the steps without answering this coarse jest.

Next day, in the space in front of the establishment of MM. Descambos
Brothers, manufacturers of Alsatian tissues, 92, Rue Hautefeuille, a
voice called out:

"Bouvard! Monsieur Bouvard!"

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

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

"Why, though?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Neither of the two friends concealed his opinion from the other. Each
recognised the correctness of the other's view. They altered their
habits, they quitting their humdrum lodgings, and ended by dining
together every day.

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

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

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

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

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

On one occasion they attended at a lecture on Arabic at the College of
France, and the professor was astonished to see these two unknown
persons attempting to take notes. Thanks to Barberou, they penetrated
into the green-room of a little theatre. Dumouchel got them tickets for
a sitting at the Academy. They inquired about discoveries, read the
prospectuses, and this curiosity developed their intelligence. At the
end of a horizon, growing every day more remote, they perceived things
at the same time confused and marvellous.

When they admired an old piece of furniture they regretted that they had
not lived at the period when it was used, though they were absolutely
ignorant of what period it was. In accordance with certain names, they
imagined countries only the more beautiful in proportion to their utter
lack of definite information about them. The works of which the titles
were to them unintelligible, appeared to their minds to contain some
mysterious knowledge.

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

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

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

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

Formerly they had been almost happy, but their occupation humiliated
them since they had begun to set a higher value on themselves, and their
disgust increased while they were mutually glorifying and spoiling each
other. Pécuchet contracted Bouvard's bluntness, and Bouvard assumed a
little of Pécuchet's moroseness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet appeared.

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

"It isn't possible!"

Bouvard showed him the following lines:

  OFFICE OF MAÎTRE TARDIVEL, NOTARY.

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

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

     TARDIVEL, _Notary_.

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

Then he returned the paper, saying slowly:

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

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

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

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

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

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

They did talk again about it. There was nothing to prevent them from
immediately demanding explanations. Bouvard wrote to the notary with
that view.

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

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

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

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

They were rudely shaken by a letter from Tardivel. The other son, M.
Alexandre, declared his intention to have the entire matter decided by
law, and even to question the legacy, if he could, requiring, first of
all, to have everything sealed, and to have an inventory taken and a
sequestrator appointed, etc. Bouvard got a bilious attack in
consequence. Scarcely had he recovered when he started for Savigny, from
which place he returned without having brought the matter nearer to a
settlement, and he could only grumble about having gone to the expense
of a journey for nothing. Then followed sleepless nights, alternations
of rage and hope, of exaltation and despondency. Finally, after the
lapse of six months, his lordship Alexandre was appeased, and Bouvard
entered into possession of his inheritance.

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

In order to know where to settle down, they passed in review all the
provinces. The north was fertile, but too cold; the south delightful, so
far as the climate was concerned, but inconvenient because of the
mosquitoes; and the middle portion of the country, in truth, had nothing
about it to excite curiosity. Brittany would have suited them, were it
not for the bigoted tendency of its inhabitants. As for the regions of
the east, on account of the Germanic _patois_ they could not dream of
it. But there were other places. For instance, what about Forez, Bugey,
and Rumois? The maps said nothing about them. Besides, whether their
house happened to be in one place or in another, the important thing was
to have one. Already they saw themselves in their shirt-sleeves, at the
edge of a plat-band, pruning rose trees, and digging, dressing, settling
the ground, growing tulips in pots. They would awaken at the singing of
the lark to follow the plough; they would go with baskets to gather
apples, would look on at butter-making, the thrashing of corn,
sheep-shearing, bee-culture, and would feel delight in the lowing of
cows and in the scent of new-mown hay. No more writing! No more heads
of departments! No more even quarters' rent to pay! For they had a
dwelling-house of their own! And they would eat the hens of their own
poultry-yard, the vegetables of their own garden, and would dine without
taking off their wooden shoes! "We'll do whatever we like! We'll let our
beards grow!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet combated his obstinacy, begged of him to give way, and finally
declared that he would make up the surplus himself. This was his entire
fortune, coming from his mother's patrimony and his own savings. Never
had he breathed a word, reserving this capital for a great occasion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The larger portion of the baggage was gone since the night before. The
garden implements, the bedsteads, the mattresses, the tables, the
chairs, a cooking apparatus, and three casks of Burgundy would go by the
Seine, as far as Havre, and would be despatched thence to Caen, where
Bouvard, who would wait for them, would have them brought on to
Chavignolles.

But his father's portrait, the armchairs the liqueur-case, the old
books, the time-piece, all the precious objects were put into a
furniture waggon, which would proceed through Nonancourt, Verneuil, and
Falaise. Pécuchet was to accompany it.

He installed himself beside the conductor, upon a seat, and, wrapped up
in his oldest frock-coat, with a comforter, mittens, and his office
foot-warmer, on Sunday, the 20th of March, at daybreak, he set forth
from the capital.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II.

EXPERIMENTS IN AGRICULTURE.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They came back by the hollow path under an avenue of beech trees. On
this side the house revealed its front and its courtyard. It was painted
white, with a coating of yellow. The carthouse and the storehouse, the
bakehouse and the woodshed, made, by means of a return, two lower wings.
The kitchen communicated with a little hall. Next came the vestibule, a
second hall larger than the other, and the drawing-room. The four rooms
on the first floor opened on the corridor facing the courtyard. Pécuchet
selected one of them for his collections. The last was to be the
library; and, on opening some of the presses, they found a few ancient
volumes, but they had no fancy for reading the titles of them. The most
urgent matter was the garden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since the middle of Lent they had awaited the approach of spring, and
each morning repeated: "Everything is starting out!" But the season was
late, and they consoled their impatience by saying: "Everything is going
to start out!"

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

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

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

The count made an appointment immediately to meet them.

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

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

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

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

As soon as they had exchanged some opening courtesies, he explained his
system with regard to fodder: the swathes should be turned without
scattering them; the ricks should be conical, and the bundles made
immediately on the spot, and then piled together by tens. As for the
English rake, the meadow was too uneven for such an implement.

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

Bouvard eulogised his lucern field.

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

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

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

"This at least appears to me incontestable."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In order to amuse the gentlemen, a servant-girl threw a handful of oats
before the hens. The shaft of the press appeared to them enormously big.
Next they went up to the pigeon-house. The dairy especially astonished
them. By turning cocks in the corners, you could get enough water to
flood the flagstones, and, as you entered, a sense of grateful coolness
came upon you as a surprise. Brown jars, ranged close to the barred
opening in the wall, were full to the brim of milk, while the cream was
contained in earthen pans of less depth. Then came rolls of butter, like
fragments of a column of copper, and froth overflowed from the tin pails
which had just been placed on the ground.

But the gem of the farm was the ox-stall. It was divided into two
sections by wooden bars standing upright their full length, one portion
being reserved for the cattle, and the other for persons who attended
on them. You could scarcely see there, as all the loopholes were closed
up. The oxen were eating, with little chains attached to them, and their
bodies exhaled a heat which was kept down by the low ceiling. But
someone let in the light, and suddenly a thin stream of water flowed
into the little channel which was beside the racks. Lowings were heard,
and the horns of the cattle made a rattling noise like sticks. All the
oxen thrust their muzzles between the bars, and proceeded to drink
slowly.

The big teams made their way into the farmyard, and the foals began to
neigh. On the ground floor two or three lanterns flashed and then
disappeared. The workpeople were passing, dragging their wooden shoes
over the pebbles, and the bell was ringing for supper.

The two visitors took their departure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starting with the principle that you cannot have too much corn, they got
rid of about half of their artificial meadows; and, as they had not rich
pasturing, they made use of oil-cakes, which they put into the ground
without pounding, with the result that the crop was a wretched one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the bed swarmed with larvæ. In spite of the dead leaves placed there
to heat the plants, under the painted frames and the whitened
bell-glasses, only a stunted crop made its appearance. He failed with
the broccoli, the mad-apples, the turnips, and the watercress, which he
had tried to raise in a tub. After the thaw all the artichokes were
ruined. The cabbages gave him some consolation. One of them especially
excited his hopes. It expanded and shut up quickly, but ended by
becoming prodigious and absolutely uneatable. No matter--Pécuchet was
content with being the possessor of a monstrosity!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The barometer deceived them; the thermometer taught them nothing; and
they had recourse to the device invented in the time of Louis XIV. by a
priest from Touraine. A leech in a glass bottle was to rise up in the
event of rain, to stick to the bottom in settled weather, and to move
about if a storm were threatening. But nearly always the atmosphere
contradicted the leech. Three others were put in along with it. The
entire four behaved differently.

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

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

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

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

"Do you learn to use it!"

"Well, do you show me!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In spite of pernicious limings, stinted redressings, and unseasonable
weedings, Bouvard had in front of him, in the following year, a splendid
crop of wheat. He thought of drying it by fermentation, in the Dutch
fashion, on the Clap-Meyer system: that is to say, he got it thrown down
all of a heap and piled up in stacks, which would be overturned as soon
as the damp escaped from them, and then exposed to the open air--after
which Bouvard went off without the least uneasiness.

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

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

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

"I believe it's a fire!"

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

"The fire is at your place!"

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

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

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

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

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

Bouvard lost his head. His entire household gathered round him, all
talking together, and he forbade them to knock down the stacks, begged
of them to give him some help, called for water, and asked where were
the firemen.

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

"That's your fault!" replied Bouvard.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The fire abated, the burning piles subsided, and an hour later only
ashes remained, making round, black marks on the plain. Then all
withdrew.

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

On the way the widow addressed very polite reproaches to her neighbour
on his unsociableness, and the ecclesiastic expressed his great surprise
at not having up to the present known such a distinguished parishioner
of his.

When they were alone together, they inquired into the cause of the
conflagration, and, in place of recognising, like the rest of the world,
that the moist straw had taken fire of its own accord, they suspected
that it was a case of revenge. It proceeded, no doubt, from Maître Gouy,
or perhaps from the mole-catcher. Six months before Bouvard had refused
to accept his services, and even maintained, before a circle of
listeners, that his trade was a baneful one, and that the government
ought to prohibit it. Since that time the man prowled about the
locality. He wore his beard full-grown, and appeared to them
frightful-looking, especially in the evening, when he presented himself
outside the farmyard, shaking his long pole garnished with hanging
moles.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It excited Bouvard's imagination so much that they sought immediately in
their books for a nomenclature for purchasable plants, and, having
selected names which appeared to them wonderful, they applied to a
nurseryman from Falaise, who busied himself in supplying them with three
hundred stalks for which he had not found a sale. They got a lock-smith
for the props, an iron-worker for the fasteners, and a carpenter for the
rests. The forms of the trees were designed beforehand. Pieces of lath
on the wall represented candelabra. Two posts at the ends of the
plat-bands supported steel threads in a horizontal position; and in the
orchard, hoops indicated the structure of vases, cone-shaped switches
that of pyramids, so well that, in arriving in the midst of them, you
imagined you saw pieces of some unknown machinery or the framework of a
pyrotechnic apparatus.

The holes having been dug, they cut the ends of all the roots, good or
bad, and buried them in a compost. Six months later the plants were
dead. Fresh orders to the nurseryman, and fresh plantings in still
deeper holes. But the rain softening the soil, the grafts buried
themselves in the ground of their own accord, and the trees sprouted
out.

When spring had come, Pécuchet set about the pruning of pear trees. He
did not cut down the shoots, spared the superfluous side branches, and,
persisting in trying to lay the "duchesses" out in a square when they
ought to go in a string on one side, he broke them or tore them down
invariably. As for the peach trees, he got mixed up with over-mother
branches, under-mother branches, and second-under-mother branches. The
empty and the full always presented themselves when they were not
wanted, and it was impossible to obtain on an espalier a perfect
rectangle, with six branches to the right and six to the left, not
including the two principal ones, the whole forming a fine bit of
herringbone work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet, surprised by the shower, had taken refuge in the hut. Bouvard
stuck to the kitchen. They saw splinters of wood, branches, and slates
whirling in front of them; and the sailors' wives who, on the sea-shore
ten leagues away, were gazing out at the sea, had not eyes more wistful
or hearts more anxious. Then, suddenly, the supports and wooden bars of
espaliers facing one another, together with the rail-work, toppled down
into the garden beds.

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

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

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

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

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

And they made complaints against Providence and against nature.

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

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

Bouvard cast a gloomy look around him.

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

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

Bouvard replied to him, "You will see in Gasparin that the profit cannot
exceed the tenth of the capital. Therefore, we should be doing better by
investing this capital in a banking-house. At the end of fifteen years,
by the accumulation of interest, we'd have it doubled, without having
our constitutions ground down."

Pécuchet hung down his head.

"Arboriculture may be a humbug!"

"Like agriculture!" replied Bouvard.

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

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

The author divides them into a great number of styles. First there is
the melancholy and romantic style, which is distinguished by
immortelles, ruins, tombs, and "a votive offering to the Virgin,
indicating the place where a lord has fallen under the blade of an
assassin." The terrible style is composed of overhanging rocks,
shattered trees, burning huts; the exotic style, by planting Peruvian
torch-thistles, "in order to arouse memories in a colonist or a
traveller." The grave style should, like Ermenonville, offer a temple to
philosophy. The majestic style is characterised by obelisks and
triumphal arches; the mysterious style by moss and by grottoes; while a
lake is appropriate to the dreamy style. There is even the fantastic
style, of which the most beautiful specimen might have been lately seen
in a garden at Würtemberg--for there might have been met successively a
wild boar, a hermit, several sepulchres, and a barque detaching itself
from the shore of its own accord, in order to lead you into a boudoir
where water-spouts lave you when you are settling yourself down upon a
sofa.

Before this horizon of marvels, Bouvard and Pécuchet experienced a kind
of bedazzlement. The fantastic style appeared to them reserved for
princes. The temple to philosophy would be cumbersome. The votive
offering of the Madonna would have no signification, having regard to
the lack of assassins, and--so much the worse for the colonists and the
travellers--the American plants would cost too much. But the rocks were
possible, as well as the shattered trees, the immortelles, and the moss;
and in their enthusiasm for new ideas, after many experiments, with the
assistance of a single man-servant, and for a trifling sum, they made
for themselves a residence which had no analogy to it in the entire
department.

The elm hedge, open here and there, allowed the light of day to fall on
the thicket, which was full of winding paths in the fashion of a
labyrinth. They had conceived the idea of making in the espalier wall an
archway, through which the prospect could be seen. As the arch could not
remain suspended, the result was an enormous breach and a fall of
wreckage to the ground.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet answered:

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

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

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

In order to try the effect of the echo, they amused themselves by giving
vent to comical phrases: Bouvard yelled out language of a blackguard
description.

He had been several times at Falaise, under the pretence of going there
to receive money, and he always came back with little parcels, which he
locked up in the chest of drawers. Pécuchet started one morning to
repair to Bretteville, and returned very late with a basket, which he
hid under his bed. Next day, when he awoke, Bouvard was surprised. The
first two yew trees of the principal walk, which the day before were
still spherical, had the appearance of peacocks, and a horn with two
porcelain knobs represented the beak and the eyes. Pécuchet had risen at
dawn, and trembling lest he should be discovered, he had cut the two
trees according to the measurement given in the written instructions
sent him by Dumouchel.

For six months the others behind the two above mentioned assumed the
forms of pyramids, cubes, cylinders, stags, or armchairs; but there was
nothing equal to the peacocks. Bouvard acknowledged it with many
eulogies.

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

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

"Do you understand my impatience?"

"I rather think so!"

And in their emotion they embraced each other.

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

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

The matter, however, was decided. Since they had come to live in the
country, they had kept themselves isolated. Everybody, through eagerness
to make their acquaintance, accepted their invitation, except the Count
de Faverges, who had been summoned to the capital by business. They fell
back on M. Hurel, his factotum.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the same time, with the sirloin of beef, Burgundy was supplied. It
was muddy. Bouvard, attributing this accident to the rinsing of the
bottles, got them to try three others without more success; then he
poured out some St. Julien, manifestly not long enough in bottle, and
all the guests were mute. Hurel smiled without discontinuing; the heavy
steps of the waiters resounded over the flooring.

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

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

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

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

Foureau asked Madame Bordin whether she liked farces.

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

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

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

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

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

The widow replied in an affected manner:

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

"Perhaps someone could soften him."

"I will not try."

"Bah! if you embraced him?"

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

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

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

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

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

Madame Bordin admired the peacocks above all; but the tomb was not
appreciated, nor the cot in flames, nor the wall in ruins. Then each in
turn passed over the bridge. In order to fill the basin, Bouvard and
Pécuchet had been carrying water in carts all the morning. It had
escaped between the foundation stones, which were imperfectly joined
together, and covered them over again with lime.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What do you say to it?"

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

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

"Servant, ladies!"

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

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

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

"Give me a glass of wine!"

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

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

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

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

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

After this, blame was attached by those present to Bouvard. Such
kindnesses encouraged disorder. But Bouvard, irritated at the
ill-success of his garden, took up the defence of the people. They all
began talking at the same time.

Foureau extolled the government. Hurel saw nothing in the world but
landed property. The Abbé Jeufroy complained of the fact that it did not
protect religion. Pécuchet attacked the taxes. Madame Bordin exclaimed
at intervals, "As for me, I detest the Republic." And the doctor
declared himself in favour of progress: "For, indeed, gentlemen, we have
need of reforms."

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

"I laugh at business!" cried Pécuchet.

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

Bouvard would not go so far.

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

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

The curé, before departing, timidly confided to Pécuchet that he did not
think this imitation of a tomb in the midst of vegetables quite
decorous. Hurel, as he withdrew, made a low bow to the company. M.
Marescot had disappeared after dessert. Madame Bordin again went over
her recipe for gherkins, promised a second for plums with brandy, and
made three turns in the large walk; but, passing close to the linden
tree, the end of her dress got caught, and they heard her murmuring:

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

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

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

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

"They scarcely noticed the pagoda."

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

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

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

Then they passed the guests in review.

"The doctor seems to me a nice snob!"

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

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

"Madame Bordin!" said Bouvard.

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

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

And they spent days in the wine-cellar, picking the tartar off the
bottles, re-varnished all the furniture, enamelled the rooms; and each
evening, as they watched the wood burning, they discussed the best
system of fuel.

Through economy they tried to smoke hams, and attempted to do the
washing themselves. Germaine, whom they inconvenienced, used to shrug
her shoulders. When the time came for making preserves she got angry,
and they took up their station in the bakehouse. It was a disused
wash-house, where there was, under the faggots, a big, old-fashioned
tub, excellently fitted for their projects, the ambition having seized
them to manufacture preserves.

Fourteen glass bottles were filled with tomatoes and green peas. They
coated the stoppers with quicklime and cheese, attached to the rims silk
cords, and then plunged them into boiling water. It evaporated; they
poured in cold water; the difference of temperature caused the bowls to
burst. Only three of them were saved. Then they procured old sardine
boxes, put veal cutlets into them, and plunged them into a vessel of
boiling water. They came out as round as balloons. The cold flattened
them out afterwards. To continue their experiments, they shut up in
other boxes eggs, chiccory, lobsters, a hotchpotch of fish, and a
soup!--and they applauded themselves like M. Appert, "on having fixed
the seasons." Such discoveries, according to Pécuchet, carried him
beyond the exploits of conquerors.

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

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

After this triumph, their pride rose to a high pitch. They bought up the
stock of a bankrupt distiller, and soon there arrived in the house
sieves, barrels, funnels, skimmers, filters, and scales, without
counting a bowl of wood with a ball attached and a Moreshead still,
which required a reflecting-furnace with a basket funnel. They learned
how sugar is clarified, and the different kinds of boilings, the large
and the small system of boiling twice over, the blowing system, the
methods of making up in balls, the reduction of sugar to a viscous
state, and the making of burnt sugar. But they longed to use the still;
and they broached the fine liqueurs, beginning with the aniseed cordial.
The liquid nearly always drew away the materials with it, or rather they
stuck together at the bottom; at other times they were mistaken as to
the amount of the ingredients. Around them shone great copper pans;
egg-shaped vessels projected their narrow openings; saucepans hung from
the walls. Frequently one of them culled herbs on the table, while the
other made the ball swing in the suspended bowl. They stirred the
ladles; they tasted the mashes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After which the proprietors, following the old custom, proposed that
they should take a "nip" at the house, and Pécuchet opened a bottle of
his Malaga, less through generosity than in the hope of eliciting
eulogies on the wine.

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

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

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

Suddenly, with the noise of a bombshell, the still burst into twenty
pieces, which jumped up to the ceiling, smashing the pots, flattening
out the skimmers and shattering the glasses. The coal was scattered
about, the furnace was demolished, and next day Germaine found a spatula
in the yard.

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

Pécuchet immediately found himself squatted behind the vat, and Bouvard
lay like one who had fallen over a stool. For ten minutes they remained
in this posture, not daring to venture on a single movement, pale with
terror, in the midst of broken glass. When they were able to recover the
power of speech, they asked themselves what was the cause of so many
misfortunes, and of the last above all? And they could understand
nothing about the matter except that they were near being killed.
Pécuchet finished with these words:

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

[Illustration]




CHAPTER III.

AMATEUR CHEMISTS.


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

The notation appeared to them irregular. The multiple proportions
perplexed Pécuchet.

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

"No more do I," said Bouvard.

And they had recourse to a work less difficult, that of Girardin, from
which they acquired the certainty that ten litres of air weigh a hundred
grammes, that lead does not go into pencils, and that the diamond is
only carbon.

What amazed them above all is that the earth, as an element, does not
exist.

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

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

After colours and oily substances came the turn of fermentation. This
brought them to acids--and the law of equivalents once more confused
them. They tried to elucidate it by means of the atomic theory, which
fairly swamped them.

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

They presented themselves during his consultation hours.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet complimented the doctor on it.

"It must be a lovely study, anatomy."

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

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

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

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

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

As for the articulations, they were hidden under too many ligaments; so
they attacked the muscles. But the insertions were not easily
discovered; and when they came to the vertebral grooves they gave it up
completely.

Then Pécuchet said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Open!"

It was M. Foureau, followed by the keeper.

Germaine's masters were pleased to show him the manikin. She had rushed
immediately to the grocer's shop to tell the thing, and the whole
village now imagined that they had a real corpse concealed in their
house. Foureau, yielding to the public clamour, had come to make sure
about the fact. A number of persons, anxious for information, stood
outside the porch.

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

"What brings you here?" said Pécuchet.

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

"The buccinator," replied Bouvard.

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

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

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

The keeper made the busybodies take themselves off.

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

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

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

The doctor, too, came to see them. He disparaged the model as too far
removed from nature, but took advantage of the occasion to give them a
lecture.

Bouvard and Pécuchet were delighted; and at their request M. Vaucorbeil
lent them several volumes out of his library, declaring at the same time
that they would not reach the end of them. They took note of the cases
of childbirth, longevity, obesity, and extraordinary constipation given
in the _Dictionary of Medical Sciences_. Would that they had known the
famous Canadian, De Beaumont, the polyphagi, Tarare and Bijou, the
dropsical woman from the department of Eure, the Piedmontese who went
every twenty days to the water-closet, Simon de Mirepoix, who was
ossified at the time of his death, and that ancient mayor of Angoulême
whose nose weighed three pounds!

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

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

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

"Well, comrades, how goes anatomy?"

"Splendidly," they would answer.

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

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

"Bravo! I expected that."

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

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

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

In order to grasp its functions better, they regretted that they had not
the faculty of ruminating, as Montègre, M. Gosse, and the brother of
Gerard had; and they masticated slowly, reduced the food to pulp, and
insalivated it, accompanying in thought the alimentary mass passing into
their intestines, and following it with methodical scrupulosity and an
almost religious attention to its final consequences.

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

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

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

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

Bouvard found difficulty in believing it; then he laughed hugely, but
stopped on perceiving tears in Pécuchet's eyes--for he had not been
without attachments, having by turns been smitten by a rope-dancer, the
sister-in-law of an architect, a bar-maid, and a young washerwoman; and
the marriage had even been arranged when he had discovered that she was
_enceinte_ by another man.

Bouvard said to him:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, Bouvard felt a little cool.

"Move your members about!" said Pécuchet.

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

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

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

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

"Not enough!"

And he continued his gymnastics.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The dog cuddled himself upon them, and lay quiet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The old servant turned on them.

"This is another of your tomfooleries, I'm sure! And my kitchen, too!
It's nice! This perhaps will drive him mad! People are in jail who are
not as bad as you!"

They got back to the laboratory in order to examine the magnetic
needles.

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

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

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

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

The question of nutrition puzzled them.

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

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

A month slipped away in doing nothing. Then they thought of their
garden. The dead tree, displayed in the middle of it, was annoying, and
accordingly, they squared it. This exercise fatigued them. Bouvard very
often found it necessary to get the blacksmith to put his tools in
order.

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

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

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
treating 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
genera 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 to 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."

"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?"

[Illustration: 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! He 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 foetus!"

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.

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 these 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 opinions
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.

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, of 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 necessary 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, and 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.

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

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

The majesty of creation engendered in them an amazement infinite as
itself. Their heads got enlarged. They were proud of reflecting on such
lofty themes.

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

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

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

Their curiosity next turned towards the beasts.

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

But all the books are not worth one personal observation. They hurried
out into the farmyard, and asked the labourers whether they had seen
bulls consorting with mares, hogs seeking after cows, and the males of
partridges doing strange things among themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

This word denotes a group of individuals whose descendants reproduce
themselves, but animals classed as of different species may possess the
power of reproduction, while others comprised in the same species have
lost the capacity. They flattered themselves that they would obtain
clear ideas on this subject by studying the development of germs; and
Pécuchet wrote to Dumouchel in order to get a microscope.

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

Dumouchel, in sending on the invoice to them, begged of them to collect
on his account some serpent-stones and sea-urchins, of which he had
always been an admirer, and which were commonly found in country
districts. In order to interest them in geology he sent them the
_Lettres_ of Bertrand with the _Discours_ of Cuvier on the revolutions
of the globe.

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

First, an immense sheet of water, from which emerged promontories
speckled with lichens, and not one human being, not one sound. It was a
world silent, motionless, and bare; there long plants swayed to and fro
in a fog that resembled the vapour of a sweating-room. A red sun
overheated the humid atmosphere. Then volcanoes burst forth; the igneous
rocks sent up mountains of liquid flame, and the paste of the streaming
porphyry and basalt began to congeal. Third picture: in shallow seas
have sprung up isles of madrepore; a cluster of palm trees overhangs
them here and there. There are shells like carriage wheels, tortoises
three metres in length, lizards of sixty feet; amphibians stretch out
amid the reeds their ostrich necks and crocodile jaws; winged serpents
fly about. Finally, on the large continents, huge mammifers make their
appearance, their limbs misshapen, like pieces of wood badly squared,
their hides thicker than plates of bronze, or else shaggy,
thick-lipped, with manes and crooked fangs. Flocks of mammoths browsed
on the plains where, since, the Atlantic has been; the paleotherium,
half horse, half tapir, overturned with his tumbling the ant-hills of
Montmartre; and the _cervus giganteus_ trembled under the chestnut trees
at the growls of the bears of the caverns, who made the dog of
Beaugency, three times as big as a wolf, yelp in his den.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

However, one of his friends, M. Larsoneur, advocate, member of the bar
at Lisieux, and archæologist, would probably supply them with
information about it. He had written a history of Port-en-Bessin, in
which the discovery of an alligator was noticed.

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

The church-bell rang the Angelus.

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

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

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

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

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

And vainly did they make application to the deputy-mayor, and then to
the first municipal councillor. They received no news from Villers. No
doubt the inhabitants were jealous about their fossils--unless they had
sold them to the English. The journey to the Hachettes was determined
upon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suddenly another individual, with a sabre, presented himself.

"Your passports?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Don't argue! follow me!"

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

Besides a passport, they were in need of many things, and before
undertaking fresh explorations they consulted the _Geological
Traveller's Guide_, by Boné. It was necessary to have, in the first
place, a good soldier's knapsack, then a surveyor's chain, a file, a
pair of nippers, a compass, and three hammers, passed into a belt, which
is hidden under the frock-coat, and "thus preserves you from that
original appearance which one ought to avoid on a journey." As for the
stick, Pécuchet freely adopted the tourist's stick, six feet high, with
a long iron point. Bouvard preferred the walking-stick umbrella, or
many-branched umbrella, the knob of which is removed in order to clasp
on the silk, which is kept separately in a little bag. They did not
forget strong shoes with gaiters, "two pairs of braces" each "on account
of perspiration," and, although one cannot present himself everywhere
in a cap, they shrank from the expense of "one of those folding hats,
which bear the name of 'Gibus,' their inventor."

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

"Well, we will adopt it."

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

Sometimes they saw, on the banks of the Orne, in a rent, pieces of rock
raising their slanting surfaces between some poplar trees and heather;
or else they were grieved by meeting, for the entire length of the road,
nothing but layers of clay. In the presence of a landscape they admired
neither the series of perspectives nor the depth of the backgrounds, nor
the undulations of the green surfaces; but that which was not visible to
them, the underpart, the earth: and for them every hill was only a fresh
proof of the Deluge.

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

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

At the end of each day they panted beneath the weight of their
specimens; but they dauntlessly carried them off home with them. They
were deposited on the doorsteps, on the stairs, in the bedrooms, in the
dining-room, and in the kitchen; and Germaine used to make a hubbub
about the quantity of dust. It was no slight task, before pasting on the
labels, to know the names of the rocks; the variety of colours and of
grain made them confuse argil and marl, granite and gneiss, quartz and
limestone.

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

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

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

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

A man who let out vehicles accosted them, and offered them drives around
the neighbourhood--Ingouville, Octeville, Fécamp, Lillebonne, "Rome, if
it was necessary."

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

In the vehicle Bouvard and Pécuchet had a conversation with three
peasants, two old women, and a seminarist, and did not hesitate to style
themselves engineers.

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

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

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

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

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

"Let us expect it," returned Pécuchet.

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

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

Pécuchet continued his reflections aloud:

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

"However, it is diminishing."

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

Bouvard remembered having read these details in Bertrand.

"But such catastrophes do not happen in Europe."

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

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

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

Bouvard imagined Europe swallowed up in an abyss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pécuchet reached the spot out of breath, saw nobody, then returned in
order to gain the fields through a defile, which Bouvard, no doubt, had
taken.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"These gentlemen wish for----?"

"An explanation, if you please."

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

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

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

And the mayor, coming up, added:

"Bless my soul! What a bath!"

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

The curé had read Bonald, and answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The vestrymen opened their eyes wide, and listened.

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

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

"Don't know him," returned the abbé.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"About what?"

"About Holy Writ, M. le Comte."

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

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

"Perhaps so. But what were we to think of a book in which it is
pretended that the light was created before the sun? as if the sun were
not the sole cause of light!"

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

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

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

The captain exclaimed: "You are revolutionaries!"

Girbal: "Peace! peace!"

The priest: "What materialism!"

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

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

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

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

"Enough!"

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

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

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

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

And they entered the sacristy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What nonsense!"

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

"Directly, that is impossible!"

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

They continued their studies, but without enthusiasm, being weary of
eocene and miocene, of Mount Jurillo, of the Julia Island, of the
mammoths of Siberia and of the fossils, invariably compared in all the
authors to "medals which are authentic testimonies," so much so that one
day Bouvard threw his knapsack on the ground, declaring that he would
not go any farther.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Mélie! are you there, Mélie?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bouvard equally admired the chest.

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

They hesitated, thinking of the necessary repairs.

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

"Let us go. Come on."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Lord, yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"To-morrow."

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

"It's all right," replied Pécuchet.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV.

RESEARCHES IN ARCHÆOLOGY.


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One spot remained empty, exactly opposite to the coat of arms, that
intended for the Renaissance chest. It was not finished; Gorju was still
working at it, jointing the panels in the bakehouse, squaring them or
undoing them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the style of a monument does not always agree with its supposed
date. The semicircular arch of the thirteenth century still holds sway
in Provence. The ogive is, perhaps, very ancient; and authors dispute as
to the anteriority of the Romanesque to the Gothic. This want of
certainty disappointed them.

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

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

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

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

"Bayeux," says M. de Caumont, "must have possessed a theatre." They
searched for the site of it without success.

The village of Montrecy contained a meadow celebrated for the number of
medals which chanced formerly to have been found there. They calculated
on making a fine harvest in this place. The caretaker refused to admit
them.

They were not more fortunate as to the connection which existed between
a cistern at Falaise and the faubourg of Caen. Ducks which had been put
in there reappeared at Vaucelles, quacking, "Can, can, can"--whence is
derived the name of the town!

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

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

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

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

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

At last Bouvard and Pécuchet addressed themselves to Larsoneur.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The big chain in the corridor came from the subterranean cells of the
keep of Torteval. In the notary's opinion it resembled the boundary
chains in front of the entrance-courts of manor-houses. Bouvard was
convinced that it had been used in former times to bind the captives. He
opened the door of the first chamber.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The widow inwardly voted him a rough person.

She went into raptures over the shell chest of drawers.

The cat of St. Allyre much astonished her, the pear in the decanter not
quite so much; then, when she came to the chimney-piece: "Ha! here's a
hat that would need mending!"

Three holes, marks of bullets, pierced its brims.

It was the head-piece of a robber chief under the Directory, David de la
Bazoque, caught in the act of treason,

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