"Therefore, authority comes from the people.
"'They have the right to do what they like,' says Helvetius; to 'change their constitution,' says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice,' according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; and St. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from a tyrant.' 'They are even,' says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right.'"
Astonished at the axiom, they took up Rousseau's Contrat Social. Pécuchet went through to the end. Then closing his eyes, and throwing back his head, he made an analysis of it.
"A convention is assumed whereby the individual gives up his liberty.
"The people at the same time undertook to protect him against the inequalities of nature, and made him owner of the things he had in his possession."
"Where is the proof of the contract?"
"Nowhere! And the community does not offer any guaranty. The citizens occupy themselves exclusively with politics. But as callings are necessary, Rousseau is in favour of slavery. 'The sciences have destroyed the human race. The theatre is corrupting, money fatal, and the state ought to impose a religion under the penalty of death.'"
"What!" said they, "here is the pontiff of democracy."
All the champions of reform had copied him; and they procured the Examen du Socialisme, by Morant.
The first chapter explained the doctrine of Saint-Simon.
At the top the Father, at the same time Pope and Emperor. Abolition of inheritance; all property movable and immovable forming a social fund, which should be worked on a hierarchical basis. The manufacturers are to govern the public fortune. But there is nothing to be afraid of; they will have as a leader the "one who loves the most."
One thing is lacking: woman. On the advent of woman depends the salvation of the world.
"I do not understand."
"Nor I."
And they turned to Fourierism:
"'All misfortunes come from constraint. Let the attraction be free, and harmony will be established.
"'In our souls are shut up a dozen leading passions: five egoistical, four animistic, and three distributive. The first class have reference to individuals, the second to groups, the last to groups of groups, or series, of which the whole forms a phalanx, a society of eighteen hundred persons dwelling in a palace. Every morning carriages convey the workers into the country, and bring them back in the evening. Standards are carried, festivities are held, cakes are eaten. Every woman, if she desires it, can have three men—the husband, the lover, and the procreator. For celibates, the Bayadère system is established——'"
"That fits me!" said Bouvard. And he lost himself in dreams of the harmonious world.
"'By the restoration of climatures, the earth will become more beautiful; by the crossing of races, human life will become longer. The clouds will be guided as the thunderbolt is now: it will rain at night in the cities so that they will be clean. Ships will cross the polar seas, thawed beneath the Aurora Borealis. For everything is produced by the conjunction of two fluids, male and female, gushing out from the poles, and the northern lights are a symptom of the blending of the planets—a prolific emission.'"
"This is beyond me!" said Pécuchet.
After Saint-Simon and Fourier the problem resolves itself into questions of wages.
Louis Blanc, in the interests of the working class, wishes to abolish external commerce; Lafarelle to tax machinery; another to take off the drink duties, to restore trade wardenships, or to distribute soups.
Proudhon conceives the idea of a uniform tariff, and claims for the state the monopoly of sugar.
"These socialists," said Bouvard, "always call for tyranny."
"Oh, no!"
"Yes, indeed!"
"You are absurd!"
"Well, I am shocked at you!"
They sent for the works of which they had only summaries. Bouvard noted a number of passages, and, pointing them out, said:
"Read for yourself. They offer as examples to us the Essenes, the Moravian Brethren, the Jesuits of Paraguay, and even the government of prisons."
"'Amongst the Icarians breakfast was over in twenty minutes; women were delivered at the hospitals. As for books, it was forbidden to print them without the authorisation of the Republic.'"
"But Cabet is an idiot."
"Here, now, we have from Saint-Simon: 'The publicists should submit their works to a committee of manufacturers.'
"And from Pierre Leroux: 'The law will compel the citizens to listen to an orator.'
"And from Auguste Comte: 'The priests will educate the youth, will exercise supervision over literary works, and will reserve to themselves the power of regulating procreation.'"
These quotations troubled Pécuchet. In the evening, at dinner, he replied:
"I admit that there are absurdities in the works of the inventors of Utopias; nevertheless they deserve our sympathy. The hideousness of the world tormented them, and, in order to make it beautiful, they endured everything. Recall to mind More decapitated, Campanella put seven times to the torture, Buonarotti with a chain round his neck, Saint-Simon dying of want; many others. They might have lived in peace; but no! they marched on their way with their heads towards the sky, like heroes."
"Do you believe," said Bouvard, "that the world will change, thanks to the theories of some particular gentleman?"
"What does it matter?" said Pécuchet; "it is time to cease stagnating in selfishness. Let us look out for the best system."
"Then you expect to find it?"
"Certainly."
"You?"
And, in the fit of laughter with which Bouvard was seized, his shoulders and stomach kept shaking in harmony. Redder than the jams before them, with his napkin under his armpits, he kept repeating, "Ha! ha! ha!" in an irritating fashion.
Pécuchet left the room, slamming the door after him.
Germaine went all over the house to call him, and he was found at the end of his own apartment in an easy chair, without fire or candle, his cap drawn over his eyes. He was not unwell, but had given himself up to his own broodings.
When the quarrel was over they recognised that a foundation was needed for their studies—political economy.
They inquired into supply and demand, capital and rent, importation and prohibition.
One night Pécuchet was awakened by the creaking of a boot in the corridor. The evening before, according to custom, he had himself drawn all the bolts; and he called out to Bouvard, who was fast asleep.
They remained motionless under the coverlets. The noise was not repeated.
The servants, on being questioned, said they had heard nothing.
But, while walking through the garden, they remarked in the middle of a flower-bed, near the gateway, the imprint of a boot-sole, and two of the sticks used as supports for the trees were broken. Evidently some one had climbed over.
It was necessary to give notice of it to the rural guard.
As he was not at the municipal building, Pécuchet thought of going to the grocer's shop.
Who should they see in the back shop, beside Placquevent, in the midst of the topers, but Gorju—Gorju, rigged out like a well-to-do citizen, entertaining the company!
This meeting was taken as a matter of course.
So on they lapsed into a discussion about progress.
Bouvard had no doubt it existed in the domain of science. But in that of literature it was not so manifest; and if comfort increases, the poetic side of life disappears.
Pécuchet, in order to bring home conviction on the point, took a piece of paper: "I trace across here an undulating line. Those who happen to travel over it, whenever it sinks, can no longer see the horizon. It rises again nevertheless, and, in spite of its windings, they reach the top. This is an image of progress."
Madame Bordin entered at this point.
It was the 3rd of December, 1851. She had the newspaper in her hand.
They read very quickly, side by side, the news of the appeal to the people, the dissolution of the Chamber, and the imprisonment of the deputies.
Pécuchet turned pale. Bouvard gazed at the widow.
"What! have you nothing to say?"
"What do you wish me to do here?" (They had forgotten to offer her a seat.) "I came here simply out of courtesy towards you, and you are scarcely civil to-day."
And out she went, disgusted at their want of politeness.
The astonishing news had struck them dumb. Then they went about the village venting their indignation.
Marescot, whom they found surrounded by a pile of deeds, took a different view. The babbling of the Chamber was at an end, thank Heaven! Henceforth they would have a business policy.
Beljambe knew nothing about the occurrences, and, furthermore, he laughed at them.
In the market-place they stopped Vaucorbeil.
The physician had got over all that. "You are very foolish to bother yourselves."
Foureau passed them by, remarking with a sly air, "The democrats are swamped."
And the captain, with Girbal's arm in his, exclaimed from a distance, "Long live the Emperor!"
But Petit would be sure to understand them, and Bouvard having tapped at a window-pane, the schoolmaster quitted his class.
He thought it a good joke to have Thiers in prison. This would avenge the people.
"Ha! ha! my gentlemen deputies, your turn now!"
The volley of musketry on the boulevards met with the approval of the people of Chavignolles. No mercy for the vanquished, no pity for the victims! Once you revolt, you are a scoundrel!
"Let us be grateful to Providence," said the curé, "and under Providence to Louis Bonaparte. He gathers around him the most distinguished men. The Count de Faverges will be made a senator."
Next day they had a visit from Placquevent.
"These gentlemen" had talked a great deal. He required a promise from them to hold their tongues.
"Do you wish to know my opinion?" said Pécuchet. "Since the middle class is ferocious and the working-men jealous-minded, whilst the people, after all, accept every tyrant, so long as they are allowed to keep their snouts in the mess, Napoleon has done right. Let him gag them, the rabble, and exterminate them—this will never be too much for their hatred of right, their cowardice, their incapacity, and their blindness."
Bouvard mused: "Hey! progress! what humbug!" He added: "And politics, a nice heap of dirt!"
"It is not a science," returned Pécuchet. "The military art is better: you can tell what will happen—we ought to turn our hands to it."
"Oh, thanks," was Bouvard's answer. "I am disgusted with everything. Better for us to sell our barrack, and go in the name of God's thunder amongst the savages."
"Just as you like."
Mélie was drawing water out in the yard.
The wooden pump had a long lever. In order to make it work, she bent her back, so that her blue stockings could be seen as high as the calf of her legs. Then, with a rapid movement, she raised her right arm, while she turned her head a little to one side; and Pécuchet, as he gazed at her, felt quite a new sensation, a charm, a thrill of intense delight.
And now the days began to be sad. They studied no longer, fearing lest they might be disillusioned. The inhabitants of Chavignolles avoided them. The newspapers they tolerated gave them no information; and so their solitude was unbroken, their time completely unoccupied.
Sometimes they would open a book, and then shut it again—what was the use of it? On other days they would be seized with the idea of cleaning up the garden: at the end of a quarter of an hour they would be fatigued; or they would set out to have a look at the farm, and come back disenchanted; or they tried to interest themselves in household affairs, with the result of making Germaine break out into lamentations. They gave it up.
Bouvard wanted to draw up a catalogue for the museum, and declared their curios stupid.
Pécuchet borrowed Langlois' duck-gun to shoot larks with; the weapon burst at the first shot, and was near killing him.
Then they lived in the midst of that rural solitude so depressing when the grey sky covers in its monotony a heart without hope. The step of a man in wooden shoes is heard as he steals along by the wall, or perchance it is the rain dripping from the roof to the ground. From time to time a dead leaf just grazes one of the windows, then whirls about and flies away. The indistinct echoes of some funeral bell are borne to the ear by the wind. From a corner of the stable comes the lowing of a cow. They yawned in each other's faces, consulted the almanac, looked at the clock, waited for meal-time; and the horizon was ever the same—fields in front, the church to the right, a screen of poplars to the left, their tops swaying incessantly in the hazy atmosphere with a melancholy air.
Habits which they formerly tolerated now gave them annoyance. Pécuchet became quite a bore from his mania for putting his handkerchief on the tablecloth. Bouvard never gave up his pipe, and would keep twisting himself about while he was talking. They started disputes about the dishes, or about the quality of the butter; and while they were chatting face to face each was thinking of different things.
A certain occurrence had upset Pécuchet's mind.
Two days after the riot at Chavignolles, while he was airing his political grievance, he had reached a road covered with tufted elms, and heard behind his back a voice exclaiming, "Stop!"
It was Madame Castillon. She was rushing across from the opposite side without perceiving him.
A man who was walking along in front of her turned round. It was Gorju; and they met some six feet away from Pécuchet, the row of trees separating them from him.
"Is it true," said she, "you are going to fight?"
Pécuchet slipped behind the ditch to listen.
"Well, yes," replied Gorju; "I am going to fight. What has that to do with you?"
"He asks me such a question!" cried she, flinging her arms about him. "But, if you are killed, my love! Oh! remain!"
And her blue eyes appealed to him, still more than her words.
"Let me alone. I have to go."
There was an angry sneer on her face.
"The other has permitted it, eh?"
"Don't speak of her."
He raised his fist.
"No, dear; no. I don't say anything." And big tears trickled down her cheeks as far as the frilling of her collarette.
It was midday. The sun shone down upon the fields covered with yellow grain. Far in the distance carriage-wheels softly slipped along the road. There was a torpor in the air—not a bird's cry, not an insect's hum. Gorju cut himself a switch and scraped off the bark.
Madame Castillon did not raise her head again. She, poor woman, was thinking of her vain sacrifices for him, the debts she had paid for him, her future liabilities, and her lost reputation. Instead of complaining, she recalled for him the first days of their love, when she used to go every night to meet him in the barn, so that her husband on one occasion, fancying it was a thief, fired a pistol-shot through the window. The bullet was in the wall still. "From the moment I first knew you, you seemed to me as handsome as a prince. I love your eyes, your voice, your walk, your smell," and in a lower tone she added: "and as for your person, I am fairly crazy about it."
He listened with a smile of gratified vanity.
She clasped him with both hands round the waist, her head bent as if in adoration.
"My dear heart! my dear love! my soul! my life! Come! speak! What is it you want? Is it money? We'll get it. I was in the wrong. I annoyed you. Forgive me; and order clothes from the tailor, drink champagne—enjoy yourself. I will allow everything—everything."
She murmured with a supreme effort, "Even her—as long as you come back to me."
He just touched her lips with his, drawing one arm around her to prevent her from falling; and she kept murmuring, "Dear heart! dear love! how handsome you are! My God! how handsome you are!"
Pécuchet, without moving an inch, his chin just touching the top of the ditch, stared at them in breathless astonishment.
"Come, no swooning," said Gorju. "You'll only have me missing the coach. A glorious bit of devilment is getting ready, and I'm in the swim; so just give me ten sous to stand the conductor a drink."
She took five francs out of her purse. "You will soon give them back to me. Have a little patience. He has been a good while paralysed. Think of that! And, if you liked, we could go to the chapel of Croix-Janval, and there, my love, I would swear before the Blessed Virgin to marry you as soon as he is dead."
"Ah! he'll never die—that husband of yours."
Gorju had turned on his heel. She caught hold of him again, and clinging to his shoulders:
"Let me go with you. I will be your servant. You want some one. But don't go away! don't leave me! Death rather! Kill me!"
She crawled towards him on her knees, trying to seize his hands in order to kiss them. Her cap fell off, then her comb, and her hair got dishevelled. It was turning white around her ears, and, as she looked up at him, sobbing bitterly, with red eyes and swollen lips, he got quite exasperated, and pushed her back.
"Be off, old woman! Good evening."
When she had got up, she tore off the gold cross that hung round her neck, and flinging it at him, cried:
"There, you ruffian!"
Gorju went off, lashing the leaves of the trees with his switch.
Madame Castillon ceased weeping. With fallen jaw and tear-dimmed eyes she stood motionless, petrified with despair; no longer a being, but a thing in ruins.
What he had just chanced upon was for Pécuchet like the discovery of a new world—a world in which there were dazzling splendours, wild blossomings, oceans, tempests, treasures, and abysses of infinite depth. There was something about it that excited terror; but what of that? He dreamed of love, desired to feel it as she felt it, to inspire it as he inspired it.
However, he execrated Gorju, and could hardly keep from giving information about him at the guard-house.
Pécuchet was mortified by the slim waist, the regular curls, and the smooth beard of Madame Castillon's lover, as well as by the air of a conquering hero which the fellow assumed, while his own hair was pasted to his skull like a soaked wig, his torso wrapped in a greatcoat resembled a bolster, two of his front teeth were out, and his physiognomy had a harsh expression. He thought that Heaven had dealt unkindly with him, and felt that he was one of the disinherited; moreover, his friend no longer cared for him.
Bouvard deserted him every evening. Since his wife was dead, there was nothing to prevent him from taking another, who, by this time, might be coddling him up and looking after his house. And now he was getting too old to think of it.
But Bouvard examined himself in the glass. His cheeks had kept their colour; his hair curled just the same as of yore; not a tooth was loose; and, at the idea that he had still the power to please, he felt a return of youthfulness. Madame Bordin rose in his memory. She had made advances to him, first on the occasion of the burning of the stacks, next at the dinner which they gave, then in the museum at the recital, and lastly, without resenting any want of attention on his part, she had called three Sundays in succession. He paid her a return visit, and repeated it, making up his mind to woo and win her.
Since the day when Pécuchet had watched the little servant-maid drawing water, he had frequently talked to her, and whether she was sweeping the corridor or spreading out the linen, or taking up the saucepans, he could never grow tired of looking at her—surprised himself at his emotions, as in the days of adolescence. He had fevers and languors on account of her, and he was stung by the picture left in his memory of Madame Castillon straining Gorju to her breast.
He questioned Bouvard as to the way libertines set about seducing women.
"They make them presents; they bring them to restaurants for supper."
"Very good. But after that?"
"Some of them pretend to faint, in order that you may carry them over to a sofa; others let their handkerchiefs fall on the ground. The best of them plainly make an appointment with you." And Bouvard launched forth into descriptions which inflamed Pécuchet's imagination, like engravings of voluptuous scenes.
"The first rule is not to believe what they say. I have known those who, under the appearance of saints, were regular Messalinas. Above all, you must be bold."
But boldness cannot be had to order.
From day to day Pécuchet put off his determination, and besides he was intimidated by the presence of Germaine.
Hoping that she would ask to have her wages paid, he exacted additional work from her, took notice every time she got tipsy, referred in a loud voice to her want of cleanliness, her quarrelsomeness, and did it all so effectively that she had to go.
Then Pécuchet was free! With what impatience he waited for Bouvard to go out! What a throbbing of the heart he felt as soon as the door closed!
Mélie was working at a round table near the window by the light of a candle; from time to time she broke the threads with her teeth, then she half-closed her eyes while adjusting it in the slit of the needle. At first he asked her what kind of men she liked. Was it, for instance, Bouvard's style?
"Oh, no." She preferred thin men.
He ventured to ask her if she ever had had any lovers.
"Never."
Then, drawing closer to her, he surveyed her piquant nose, her small mouth, her charmingly-rounded figure. He paid her some compliments, and exhorted her to prudence.
In bending over her he got a glimpse, under her corsage, of her white skin, from which emanated a warm odour that made his cheeks tingle. One evening he touched with his lips the wanton hairs at the back of her neck, and he felt shaken even to the marrow of his bones. Another time he kissed her on the chin, and had to restrain himself from putting his teeth in her flesh, so savoury was it. She returned his kiss. The apartment whirled round; he no longer saw anything.
He made her a present of a pair of lady's boots, and often treated her to a glass of aniseed cordial.
To save her trouble he rose early, chopped up the wood, lighted the fire, and was so attentive as to clean Bouvard's shoes.
Mélie did not faint or let her handkerchief fall, and Pécuchet did not know what to do, his passion increasing through the fear of satisfying it.
Bouvard was assiduously paying his addresses to Madame Bordin. She used to receive him rather cramped in her gown of shot silk, which creaked like a horse's harness, all the while fingering her long gold chain to keep herself in countenance.
Their conversations turned on the people of Chavignolles or on "the dear departed," who had been an usher at Livarot.
Then she inquired about Bouvard's past, curious to know something of his "youthful freaks," the way in which he had fallen heir to his fortune, and the interests by which he was bound to Pécuchet.
He admired the appearance of her house, and when he came to dinner there was struck by the neatness with which it was served and the excellent fare placed on the table. A succession of dishes of the most savoury description, which intermingled at regular intervals with a bottle of old Pomard, brought them to the dessert, at which they remained a long time sipping their coffee; and, with dilating nostrils, Madame Bordin dipped into her saucer her thick lip, lightly shaded with a black down.
One day she appeared in a low dress. Her shoulders fascinated Bouvard. As he sat in a little chair before her, he began to pass his hands along her arms. The widow seemed offended. He did not repeat this attention, but he pictured to himself those ample curves, so marvellously smooth and fine.
Any evening when he felt dissatisfied with Mélie's cooking, it gave him pleasure to enter Madame Bordin's drawing-room. It was there he should have lived.
The globe of the lamp, covered with a red shade, shed a tranquil light. She was seated close to the fire, and his foot touched the hem of her skirt.
After a few opening words the conversation flagged.
However, she kept gazing at him, with half-closed lids, in a languid fashion, but unbending withal.
Bouvard could not stand it any longer, and, sinking on his knees to the floor, he stammered:
"I love you! Marry me!"
Madame Bordin drew a strong breath; then, with an ingenuous air, said he was jesting; no doubt he was trying to have a laugh at her expense—it was not fair. This declaration stunned her.
Bouvard returned that she did not require anyone's consent. "What's to hinder you? Is it the trousseau? Our linen has the same mark, a B—we'll unite our capital letters!"
The idea caught her fancy. But a more important matter prevented her from arriving at a decision before the end of the month. And Bouvard groaned.
She had the politeness to accompany him to the gate, escorted by Marianne, who carried a lantern.
The two friends kept their love affairs hidden from each other.
Pécuchet counted on always cloaking his intrigue with the servant-maid. If Bouvard made any opposition to it, he could carry her off to other places, even though it were to Algeria, where living is not so dear. But he rarely indulged in such speculations, full as he was of his passion, without thinking of the consequences.
Bouvard conceived the idea of converting the museum into the bridal chamber, unless Pécuchet objected, in which case he might take up his residence at his wife's house.
One afternoon in the following week—it was in her garden; the buds were just opening, and between the clouds there were great blue spaces—she stopped to gather some violets, and said as she offered them to him:
"Salute Madame Bouvard!"
"Perfectly true."
He was about to clasp her in his arms. She kept him back. "What a man!" Then, growing serious, she warned him that she would shortly be asking him for a favour.
"'Tis granted."
They fixed the following Thursday for the formality of signing the marriage contract.
Nobody should know anything about it up to the last moment.
"Agreed."
And off he went, looking up towards the sky, nimble as a roebuck.
Pécuchet on the morning of the same day said in his own mind that he would die if he did not obtain the favours of his little maid, and he followed her into the cellar, hoping the darkness would give him courage.
She tried to go away several times, but he detained her in order to count the bottles, to choose laths, or to look into the bottoms of casks—and this occupied a considerable time.
She stood facing him under the light that penetrated through an air-hole, with her eyes cast down, and the corner of her mouth slightly raised.
"Do you love me?" said Pécuchet abruptly.
"Yes, I do love you."
"Well, then prove it to me."
And throwing his left arm around her, he embraced her with ardour.
"You're going to do me some harm."
"No, my little angel. Don't be afraid."
"If Monsieur Bouvard——"
"I'll tell him nothing. Make your mind easy."
There was a heap of faggots behind them. She sank upon them, and hid her face under one arm;—and another man would have understood that she was no novice.
Bouvard arrived soon for dinner.
The meal passed in silence, each of them being afraid of betraying himself, while Mélie attended them with her usual impassiveness.
Pécuchet turned away his eyes to avoid hers; and Bouvard, his gaze resting on the walls, pondered meanwhile on his projected improvements.
Eight days after he came back in a towering rage.
"The damned traitress!"
"Who, pray?"
"Madame Bordin."
And he related how he had been so infatuated as to offer to make her his wife, but all had come to an end a quarter of an hour since at Marescot's office. She wished to have for her marriage portion the Ecalles meadow, which he could not dispose of, having partly retained it, like the farm, with the money of another person.
"Exactly," said Pécuchet.
"I had had the folly to promise her any favour she asked—and this was what she was after! I attribute her obstinacy to this; for if she loved me she would have given way to me."
The widow, on the contrary, had attacked him in insulting language, and referred disparagingly to his physique, his big paunch.
"My paunch! Just imagine for a moment!"
Meanwhile Pécuchet had risen several times, and seemed to be in pain.
Bouvard asked him what was the matter, and thereupon Pécuchet, having first taken the precaution to shut the door, explained in a hesitating manner that he was affected with a certain disease.
"What! You?"
"I—myself."
"Oh, my poor fellow! And who is the cause of this?"
Pécuchet became redder than before, and said in a still lower tone:
"It can be only Mélie."
Bouvard remained stupefied.
The first thing to do was to send the young woman away.
She protested with an air of candour.
Pécuchet's case was, however, serious; but he was ashamed to consult a physician.
Bouvard thought of applying to Barberou.
They gave him particulars about the matter, in order that he might communicate with a doctor who would deal with the case by correspondence.
Barberou set to work with zeal, believing it was Bouvard's own case, and calling him an old dotard, even though he congratulated him about it.
"At my age!" said Pécuchet. "Is it not a melancholy thing? But why did she do this?"
"You pleased her."
"She ought to have given me warning."
"Does passion reason?" And Bouvard renewed his complaints about Madame Bordin.
Often had he surprised her before the Ecalles, in Marescot's company, having a gossip with Germaine. So many manœuvres for a little bit of land!
"She is avaricious! That's the explanation."
So they ruminated over their disappointments by the fireside in the breakfast parlour, Pécuchet swallowing his medicines and Bouvard puffing at his pipe; and they began a discussion about women.
"Strange want!—or is it a want?" "They drive men to crime—to heroism as well as to brutishness." "Hell under a petticoat," "paradise in a kiss," "the turtle's warbling," "the serpent's windings," "the cat's claws," "the sea's treachery," "the moon's changeableness." They repeated all the commonplaces that have been uttered about the sex.
It was the desire for women that had suspended their friendship. A feeling of remorse took possession of them. "No more women. Is not that so? Let us live without them!" And they embraced each other tenderly.
There should be a reaction; and Bouvard, when Pécuchet was better, considered that a course of hydropathic treatment would be beneficial.
Germaine, who had come back since the other servant's departure, carried the bathing-tub each morning into the corridor.
The two worthies, naked as savages, poured over themselves big buckets of water; they then rushed back to their rooms. They were seen through the garden fence, and people were scandalised.
Satisfied with their regimen, they desired to improve their constitutions by gymnastics; and taking up the Manual of Amoros, they went through its atlas. All those young lads squatting, lying back, standing, bending their legs, lifting weights, riding on beams, climbing ladders, cutting capers on trapezes—such a display of strength and agility excited their envy.
However, they were saddened by the splendour of the gymnasium described in the preface; for they would never be able to get a vestibule for the equipages, a hippodrome for the races, a sweep of water for the swimming, or a "mountain of glory"—an artificial hillock over one hundred feet in height.
A wooden vaulting-horse with the stuffing would have been expensive: they abandoned the idea. The linden tree, thrown down in the garden, might have been used as a horizontal pole; and, when they were skilful enough to go over it from one end to the other, in order to have a vertical one, they set up a beam of counter-espaliers. Pécuchet clambered to the top; Bouvard slipped off, always fell back, finally gave it up.
The "orthosomatic sticks" pleased him better; that is to say, two broomsticks bound by two cords, the first of which passes under the armpits, and the second over the wrists; and for hours he would remain in this apparatus, with his chin raised, his chest extended, and his elbows close to his sides.
For want of dumbbells, the wheelwright turned out four pieces of ash resembling sugar-loaves with necks of bottles at the ends. These should be carried to the right and to the left, to the front and to the back; but being too heavy they fell out of their hands, at the risk of bruising their legs. No matter! They set their hearts on Persian clubs, and even fearing lest they might break, they rubbed them every evening with wax and a piece of cloth.
Then they looked out for ditches. When they found one suitable for their purpose, they rested a long pole in the centre, sprang forward on the left foot, reached the opposite side, and then repeated the performance. The country being flat, they could be seen at a distance; and the villagers asked one another what were these extraordinary things skipping towards the horizon.
When autumn arrived they went in for chamber gymnastics, which completely bored them. Why had they not the indoor apparatus or post-armchair invented in Louis XIV.'s time by the Abbé of St. Pierre? How was it made? Where could they get the information?
Dumouchel did not deign to answer their letter on the subject.
Then they erected in the bakehouse a brachial weighing-machine. Over two pulleys attached to the ceiling a rope was passed, holding a crossbeam at each end. As soon as they had caught hold of it one pushed against the ground with his toes, while the other lowered his arms to a level with the floor; the first by his weight would draw towards him the second, who, slackening his rope a little, would ascend in his turn. In less than five minutes their limbs were dripping with perspiration.
In order to follow the prescriptions of the Manual, they tried to make themselves ambidextrous, even to the extent of depriving themselves for a time of the use of their right hands. They did more: Amoros points out certain snatches of verse which ought to be sung during the manœuvres, and Bouvard and Pécuchet, as they proceeded, kept repeating the hymn No. 9: "A king, a just king is a blessing on earth."
When they beat their breast-bones: "Friends, the crown and the glory," etc.
At the various steps of the race:
And, panting more than hounds, they cheered each other on with the sounds of their voices.
One side of gymnastics excited their enthusiasm—its employment as a means of saving life. But they would have required children in order to learn how to carry them in sacks, and they begged the schoolmaster to furnish them with some. Petit objected that their families would be annoyed at it. They fell back on the succour of the wounded. One pretended to have swooned: the other rolled him away in a wheelbarrow with the utmost precaution.
As for military escalades, the author extols the ladder of Bois-Rosé, so called from the captain who surprised Fécamp in former days by climbing up the cliff.
In accordance with the engraving in the book, they trimmed a rope with little sticks and fixed it under the cart-shed. As soon as the first stick is bestridden and the third grasped, the limbs are thrown out in order that the second, which a moment before was against the chest, might be directly under the thighs. The climber then springs up and grasps the fourth, and so goes on.
In spite of prodigious strainings of the hips, they found it impossible to reach the second step. Perhaps there is less trouble in hanging on to stones with your hands, just as Bonaparte's soldiers did at the attack of Fort Chambray? and to make one capable of such an action, Amoros has a tower in his establishment.
The wall in ruins might do as a substitute for it. They attempted the assault with it. But Bouvard, having withdrawn his foot too quickly from a hole, got frightened, and was seized with dizziness.
Pécuchet blamed their method for it. They had neglected that which relates to the phalanxes, so that they should go back to first principles.
His exhortations were fruitless; and then, in his pride and presumption, he went in for stilts.
Nature seemed to have destined him for them, for he immediately made use of the great model with flat boards four feet from the ground, and, balanced thereon, he stalked over the garden like a gigantic stork taking exercise.
Bouvard, at the window, saw him stagger and then flop down all of a heap over the kidney-beans, whose props, giving way as he descended, broke his fall.
He was picked up covered with mould, his nostrils bleeding—livid; and he fancied that he had strained himself.
Decidedly, gymnastics did not agree with men of their age. They abandoned them, did not venture to move about any longer for fear of accidents, and they remained the whole day sitting in the museum dreaming of other occupations.
This change of habits had an influence on Bouvard's health. He became very heavy, puffed like a whale after his meals, tried to make himself thin, ate less, and began to grow weak.
Pécuchet, in like manner, felt himself "undermined," had itchings in his skin and lumps in his throat.
"This won't do," said they; "this won't do."
Bouvard thought of going to select at the inn some bottles of Spanish wine in order to put his bodily machinery in order.
As he was going out, Marescot's clerk and three men brought from Beljambe a large walnut table. "Monsieur" was much obliged to him for it. It had been conveyed in perfect order.
Bouvard in this way learned about the new fashion of table-turning. He joked about it with the clerk.
However, all over Europe, America, Australia and the Indies, millions of mortals passed their lives in making tables turn; and they discovered the way to make prophets of canaries, to give concerts without instruments, and to correspond by means of snails. The press, seriously offering these impostures to the public, increased its credulity.
The spirit-rappers had alighted at the château of Faverges, and thence had spread through the village; and the notary questioned them particularly.
Shocked at Bouvard's scepticism, he invited the two friends to an evening party at table-turning.
Was this a trap? Madame Bordin was to be there. Pécuchet went alone.
There were present as spectators the mayor, the tax-collector, the captain, other residents and their wives, Madame Vaucorbeil, Madame Bordin, of course, besides Mademoiselle Laverrière, Madame Marescot's former schoolmistress, a rather squint-eyed lady with her hair falling over her shoulders in the corkscrew fashion of 1830. In an armchair sat a cousin from Paris, attired in a blue coat and wearing an air of insolence.
The two bronze lamps, the whatnot containing a number of curiosities, ballads embellished with vignettes on the piano, and small water-colours in huge frames, had always excited astonishment in Chavignolles. But this evening all eyes were directed towards the mahogany table. They would test it by and by, and it had the importance of things which contain a mystery. A dozen guests took their places around it with outstretched hands and their little fingers touching one another. Only the ticking of the clock could be heard. The faces indicated profound attention. At the end of ten minutes several complained of tinglings in the arms.
Pécuchet was incommoded.
"You are pushing!" said the captain to Foureau.
"Not at all."
"Yes, you are!"
"Ah! sir."
The notary made them keep quiet.
By dint of straining their ears they thought they could distinguish cracklings of wood.
An illusion! Nothing had budged.
The other day when the Aubert and Lorraine families had come from Lisieux and they had expressly borrowed Beljambe's table for the occasion, everything had gone on so well. But this to-day exhibited a certain obstinacy. Why?
The carpet undoubtedly counteracted it, and they changed to the dining-room.
The round table, which was on rollers, glided towards the right-hand side. The operators, without displacing their fingers, followed its movements, and of its own accord it made two turns. They were astounded.
Then M. Alfred articulated in a loud voice:
"Spirit, how do you find my cousin?"
The table, slowly oscillating, struck nine raps. According to a slip of paper, in which the number of raps were translated by letters, this meant "Charming."
A number of voices exclaimed "Bravo!"
Then Marescot, to tease Madame Bordin, called on the spirit to declare her exact age.
The foot of the table came down with five taps.
"What? five years!" cried Girbal.
"The tens don't count," replied Foureau.
The widow smiled, though she was inwardly annoyed.
The replies to the other questions were missing, so complicated was the alphabet.
Much better was the plane table—an expeditious medium of which Mademoiselle Laverrière had made use for the purpose of noting down in an album the direct communications of Louis XII., Clémence Isaure, Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others. These mechanical contrivances are sold in the Rue d'Aumale. M. Alfred promised one of them; then addressing the schoolmistress: "But for a quarter of an hour we should have a little music; don't you think so? A mazurka!"
Two metal chords vibrated. He took his cousin by the waist, disappeared with her, and came back again.
The sweep of her dress, which just brushed the doors as they passed, cooled their faces. She flung back her head; he curved his arms. The gracefulness of the one, the playful air of the other, excited general admiration; and, without waiting for the rout cakes, Pécuchet took himself off, amazed at the evening's exhibition.
In vain did he repeat: "But I have seen it! I have seen it!"
Bouvard denied the facts, but nevertheless consented to make an experiment himself.
For a fortnight they spent every afternoon facing each other, with their hands over a table, then over a hat, over a basket, and over plates. All these remained motionless.
The phenomenon of table-turning is none the less certain. The common herd attribute it to spirits; Faraday to prolonged nervous action; Chevreuil to unconscious efforts; or perhaps, as Segouin admits, there is evolved from the assembly of persons an impulse, a magnetic current.
This hypothesis made Pécuchet reflect. He took into his library the Magnetiser's Guide, by Montacabère, read it over attentively, and initiated Bouvard in the theory: All animated bodies receive and communicate the influence of the stars—a property analogous to the virtue of the loadstone. By directing this force we may cure the sick; there is the principle. Science has developed since Mesmer; but it is always an important thing to pour out the fluid and to make passes, which, in the first place, must have the effect of inducing sleep.
"Well! send me to sleep," said Bouvard.
"Impossible!" replied Pécuchet: "in order to be subject to the magnetic action, and to transmit it, faith is indispensable."
Then, gazing at Bouvard: "Ah! what a pity!"
"How?"
"Yes, if you wished, with a little practice, there would not be a magnetiser anywhere like you."
For he possessed everything that was needed: easiness of access, a robust constitution, and a solid mind.
The discovery just made of such a faculty in himself was flattering to Bouvard. He took a plunge into Montacabère's book on the sly.
Then, as Germaine used to feel buzzings in her ears that deafened her, he said to her one evening in a careless tone:
"Suppose we try magnetism?"
She did not make any objection to it. He sat down in front of her, took her two thumbs in his hands, and looked fixedly at her, as if he had not done anything else all his life.
The old dame, with her feet on a footwarmer, began by bending her neck; her eyes closed, and quite gently she began to snore. At the end of an hour, during which they had been staring at her, Pécuchet said in a low tone:
"What do you feel?"
She awoke.
Later, no doubt, would come lucidity.
This success emboldened them, and, resuming with self-confidence, the practice of medicine, they nursed Chamberlan, the beadle, for pains in his ribs; Migraine the mason, who had a nervous affection of the stomach; Mère Varin, whose encephaloid under the collar-bone required, in order to nourish her, plasters of meat; a gouty patient, Père Lemoine, who used to crawl by the side of taverns; a consumptive; a person afflicted with hemiplegia, and many others. They also treated corns and chilblains.
After an investigation into the disease, they cast questioning glances at each other to determine what passes to use, whether the currents should be large or small, ascending or descending, longitudinal, transversal, bidigital, tridigital, or even quindigital.
When the one had had too much of it, the other replaced him. Then, when they had come back to their own house, they noted down their observation in their diary of treatment.
Their suave manners captivated everyone. However, Bouvard was liked better, and his reputation spread as far as Falaise, where he had cured La Barbée, the daughter of Père Barbée, a retired captain of long standing.
She had felt something like a nail in the back of her head, spoke in a hoarse voice, often remained several days without eating, and then would devour plaster or coal. Her nervous crises, beginning with sobs, ended in floods of tears; and every kind of remedy, from diet-drinks to moxas, had been employed, so that, through sheer weariness, she accepted Bouvard's offer to cure her.
When he had dismissed the servant-maid and bolted the door, he began rubbing her abdomen, while leaning over the seat of the ovaries. A sense of relief manifested itself by sighs and yawns. He placed his finger between her eyebrows and the top of her nose: all at once she became inert. If one lifted her arms, they fell down again. Her head remained in whatever attitude he wished, and her lids, half closed, vibrating with a spasmodic movement, allowed her eyeballs to be seen rolling slowly about; they riveted themselves on the corners convulsively.
Bouvard asked her if she were in pain. She replied that she was not. Then he inquired what she felt now. She indicated the inside of her body.
"What do you see there?"
"A worm."
"What is necessary in order to kill it?"
She wrinkled her brow. "I am looking for—I am not able! I am not able!"
At the second sitting she prescribed for herself nettle-broth; at the third, catnip. The crises became mitigated, then disappeared. It was truly a miracle. The nasal addigitation did not succeed with the others, and, in order to bring on somnambulism, they projected the construction of a mesmeric tub. Pécuchet already had even collected the filings and cleaned a score of bottles, when a scruple made him hesitate.
Amongst the patients there would be persons of the other sex.
"And what are we to do if this should give rise to an outburst of erotic mania?"
This would not have proved any impediment to Bouvard; but for fear of impostures and attempts to extort hush-money, it was better to put aside the project. They contented themselves with a collection of musical glasses, which they carried about with them to the different houses, so as to delight the children.
One day, when Migraine was worse, they had recourse to the musical glasses. The crystalline sounds exasperated him; but Deleuze enjoins that one should not be frightened by complaints; and so they went on with the music.
"Enough! enough!" he cried.
"A little patience!" Bouvard kept repeating.
Pécuchet tapped more quickly on the glass plates, and the instrument was vibrating in the midst of the poor man's cries when the doctor appeared, attracted by the hubbub.
"What! you again?" he exclaimed, enraged at finding them always with his patients.
They explained their magnetic method of curing. Then he declaimed against magnetism—"a heap of juggleries, whose effects came only from the imagination."
However, animals are magnetised. Montacabère so states, and M. Fontaine succeeded in magnetising a lion. They had not a lion, but chance had offered them another animal.
For on the following day a ploughboy came to inform them that they were wanted up at the farm for a cow in a hopeless condition.
They hurried thither. The apple trees were in bloom, and the herbage in the farmyard was steaming under the rays of the rising sun.
At the side of a pond, half covered with a cloth, a cow was lowing, while she shivered under the pails of water that were being emptied over her body, and, enormously swollen, she looked like a hippopotamus.
Without doubt she had got "venom" while grazing amid the clover. Père Gouy and his wife were afflicted because the veterinary surgeon was not able to come, and the wheelwright who had a charm against swelling did not choose to put himself out of his way; but "these gentlemen, whose library was famous, must know the secret."
Having tucked up their sleeves, they placed themselves one in front of the horns, the other at the rump, and, with great internal efforts and frantic gesticulations, they spread wide their fingers in order to scatter streams of fluid over the animal, while the farmer, his wife, their son, and the neighbours regarded them almost with terror.
The rumblings which were heard in the cow's belly caused borborygms in the interior of her bowels. She emitted wind.
Pécuchet thereupon said: "This is an opening door for hope—an outlet, perhaps."
The outlet produced its effect: the hope gushed forth in a bundle of yellow stuff, bursting with the force of a shell. The hide got loose; the cow got rid of her swelling. An hour later there was no longer any sign of it.
This was certainly not the result of imagination. Therefore the fluid contained some special virtue. It lets itself be shut up in the objects to whom it is given without being impaired. Such an expedient saves displacements. They adopted it; and they sent their clients magnetised tokens, magnetised handkerchiefs, magnetised water, and magnetised bread.
Then, continuing their studies, they abandoned the passes for the system of Puységur, which replaces the magnetiser by means of an old tree, about the trunk of which a cord is rolled.
A pear tree in their fruit garden seemed made expressly for the purpose. They prepared it by vigorously encircling it with many pressures. A bench was placed underneath. Their clients sat in a row, and the results obtained there were so marvellous that, in order to get the better of Vaucorbeil, they invited him to a séance along with the leading personages of the locality.
Not one failed to attend. Germaine received them in the breakfast-room, making excuses on behalf of her masters, who would join them presently.
From time to time they heard the bell ringing. It was the patients whom she was bringing in by another way. The guests nudged one another, drawing attention to the windows covered with dust, the stains on the panels, the frayed pictures; and the garden, too, was in a wretched state. Dead wood everywhere! The orchard was barricaded with two sticks thrust into a gap in the wall.
Pécuchet made his appearance. "At your service, gentlemen."
And they saw at the end of the garden, under the Edouïn pear tree, a number of persons seated.
Chamberlan, clean-shaven like a priest, in a short cassock of lasting, with a leathern cap, gave himself up to the shivering sensations engendered by the pains in his ribs. Migraine, whose stomach was always tormenting him, made wry faces close beside him. Mère Varin, to hide her tumour, wore a shawl with many folds. Père Lemoine, his feet stockingless in his old shoes, had his crutches under his knees; and La Barbée, who wore her Sunday clothes, looked exceedingly pale.
At the opposite side of the tree were other persons. A woman with an albino type of countenance was sponging the suppurating glands of her neck; a little girl's face half disappeared under her blue glasses; an old man, whose spine was deformed by a contraction, with his involuntary movements knocked against Marcel, a sort of idiot clad in a tattered blouse and a patched pair of trousers. His hare-lip, badly stitched, allowed his incisors to be seen, and his jaw, which was swollen by an enormous inflammation, was muffled up in linen.
They were all holding in their hands pieces of twine that hung down from the tree. The birds were singing, and the air was impregnated with the refreshing smell of grass. The sun played with the branches, and the ground was smooth as moss.
Meanwhile, instead of going to sleep, the subjects of the experiment were straining their eyes.
"Up to the present," said Foureau, "it is not funny. Begin. I am going away for a minute."
And he came back smoking an Abd-el-Kader, the last that was left from the gate with the pipes.
Pécuchet recalled to mind an admirable method of magnetising. He put into his mouth the noses of all the patients in succession, and inhaled their breath, in order to attract the electricity to himself; and at the same time Bouvard clasped the tree, with the object of augmenting the fluid.
The mason interrupted his hiccoughs; the beadle was agitated; the man with the contraction moved no more. It was possible now to approach them, and make them submit to all the tests.
The doctor, with his lancet, pricked Chamberlan's ear, which trembled a little. Sensibility in the case of the others was manifest. The gouty man uttered a cry. As for La Barbée, she smiled, as if in a dream, and a stream of blood trickled under her jaw.
Foureau, in order to make the experiment himself, would fain have seized the lancet, but the doctor having refused, he vigorously pinched the invalid.
The captain tickled her nostrils with a feather; the tax-collector plunged a pin under her skin.
"Let her alone now," said Vaucorbeil; "it is nothing astonishing, after all. Simply a hysterical female! The devil will have his pains for nothing."
"That one there," said Pécuchet, pointing towards Victoire, the scrofulous woman, "is a physician. She recognises diseases, and indicates the remedies."
Langlois burned to consult her about his catarrh; but Coulon, more courageous, asked her for something for his rheumatism.
Pécuchet placed his right hand in Victoire's left, and, with her lids closed uninterruptedly, her cheeks a little red, her lips quivering, the somnambulist, after some rambling utterances, ordered valum becum.
She had assisted in an apothecary's shop at Bayeux. Vaucorbeil drew the inference that what she wanted to say was album Græcum a term which is to be found in pharmacy.
Then they accosted Père Lemoine, who, according to Bouvard, could see objects through opaque bodies. He was an ex-schoolmaster, who had sunk into debauchery. White hairs were scattered about his face, and, with his back against the tree and his palms open, he was sleeping in the broad sunlight in a majestic fashion.
The physician drew over his eyes a double neckcloth; and Bouvard, extending a newspaper towards him, said imperiously:
"Read!"
He lowered his brow, moved the muscles of his face, then threw back his head, and ended by spelling out:
"Cons-ti-tu-tion-al."
But with skill the muffler could be slipped off!
These denials by the physician roused Pécuchet's indignation. He even ventured to pretend that La Barbée could describe what was actually taking place in his own house.
"May be so," returned the doctor.
Then, taking out his watch:
"What is my wife occupying herself with?"
For a long time La Barbée hesitated; then with a sullen air:
"Hey! what? I am there! She is sewing ribbons on a straw hat."
Vaucorbeil snatched a leaf from his note-book and wrote a few lines on it, which Marescot's clerk hastened to deliver.
The séance was over. The patients went away.
Bouvard and Pécuchet, on the whole, had not succeeded. Was this due to the temperature, or to the smell of tobacco, or to the Abbé Jeufroy's umbrella, which had a lining of copper, a metal unfavourable to the emission of the fluid?
Vaucorbeil shrugged his shoulders. However, he could not deny the honesty of MM. Deleuze, Bertrand, Morin, Jules Cloquet. Now these masters lay down that somnambulists have predicted events, and submitted without pain to cruel operations.
The abbé related stories more astonishing. A missionary had seen Brahmins rushing, heads down, through a street; the Grand Lama of Thibet rips open his bowels in order to deliver oracles.
"Are you joking?" said the physician.
"By no means."
"Come, now, what tomfoolery that is!"
And the question being dropped, each of them furnished an anecdote.
"As for me," said the grocer, "I had a dog who was always sick when the month began on a Friday."
"We were fourteen children," observed the justice of the peace. "I was born on the 14th, my marriage took place on the 14th, and my saint's-day falls on the 14th. Explain this to me."
Beljambe had often reckoned in a dream the number of travellers he would have next day at his inn; and Petit told about the supper of Cazotte.
The curé then made this reflection:
"Why do we not see into it quite easily?"
"The demons—is that what you say?" asked Vaucorbeil.
Instead of again opening his lips, the abbé nodded his head.
Marescot spoke of the Pythia of Delphi.
"Beyond all question, miasmas."
"As for me, I admit the existence of a fluid," remarked Bouvard.
"Nervoso-siderial," added Pécuchet.
"But prove it, show it, this fluid of yours! Besides, fluids are out of fashion. Listen to me."
Vaucorbeil moved further up to get into the shade. The others followed him.
"If you say to a child, 'I am a wolf; I am going to eat you,' he imagines that you are a wolf, and he is frightened. Therefore, this is a vision conjured up by words. In the same way the somnambulist accepts any fancies that you desire him to accept. He recollects instead of imagining, and has merely sensations when he believes that he is thinking. In this manner it is possible for crimes to be suggested, and virtuous people may see themselves ferocious beasts, and involuntarily become cannibals."
Glances were cast towards Bouvard and Pécuchet. Their scientific pursuits were fraught with dangers to society.
Marescot's clerk reappeared in the garden flourishing a letter from Madame Vaucorbeil.
The doctor tore it open, turned pale, and finally read these words:
"I am sewing ribbons on a straw hat."
Amazement prevented them from bursting into a laugh.