CHAPTER X.

LESSONS IN ART AND SCIENCE.

They procured a number of works relating to education, and resolved to

adopt a system of their own. It was necessary to banish every

metaphysical idea, and, in accordance with the experimental method, to

follow in the lines of natural development. There was no haste, for the

two pupils might forget what they had learned.

Though they had strong constitutions, Pécuchet wished, like a Spartan,

to make them more hardy, to accustom them to hunger, thirst, and severe

weather, and even insisted on having their feet badly shod in order that

they might be prepared for colds. Bouvard was opposed to this.

The dark closet at the end of the corridor was used as their sleeping

apartment. Its furniture consisted of two folding beds, two couches, and

a jug. Above their heads the top window was open, and spiders crawled

along the plaster. Often the children recalled to mind the interior of a

cabin where they used to wrangle. One night their father came home with

blood on his hands. Some time afterwards the gendarmes arrived. After

that they lived in a wood. Men who made wooden shoes used to kiss their

mother. She died, and was carried off in a cart. They used to get severe

beatings; they got lost. Then they could see once more Madame de Noares

and Sorel; and, without asking themselves the reason why they were in

this house, they felt happy there. But they were disagreeably surprised

when at the end of eight months the lessons began again. Bouvard took

charge of the little girl, and Pécuchet of the boy.

Victor was able to distinguish letters, but did not succeed in forming

syllables. He stammered over them, then stopped suddenly, and looked

like an idiot. Victorine put questions. How was it that "ch" in

"orchestra" had the sound of a "q," and that of a "k" in "archæology."

We must sometimes join two vowels and at other times separate them. All

this did not seem to her right. She grew indignant at it.

The teachers gave instruction at the same hour in their respective

apartments, and, as the partition was thin, these four voices, one soft,

one deep, and two sharp, made a hideous concert. To finish the business

and to stimulate the youngsters by means of emulation, they conceived

the idea of making them work together in the museum; and they proceeded

to teach them writing. The two pupils, one at each end of the table,

copied written words that were set for them; but the position of their

bodies was awkward. It was necessary to straighten them; their copybooks

fell down; their pens broke, and their ink bottles were turned upside

down.

Victorine, on certain days, went on capitally for about three minutes,

then she would begin to scrawl, and, seized with discouragement, she

would sit with her eyes fixed on the ceiling. Victor was not long before

he fell asleep, lying over his desk.

Perhaps they were distressed by it? Too great a strain was bad for young

heads.

"Let us stop," said Bouvard.

There is nothing so stupid as to make children learn by heart; yet, if

the memory is not exercised, it will go to waste, and so they taught the

youngsters to recite like parrots the first fables of La Fontaine. The

children expressed their approval of the ant that heaped up treasure, of

the wolf that devoured the lamb, and of the lion that took everyone's

share.

When they had become more audacious, they spoiled the garden. But what

amusement could be provided for them?

Jean Jacques Rousseau in _Emile_ advises the teacher to get the pupil to

make his own playthings. Bouvard could not contrive to make a hoop or

Pécuchet to sew up a ball. They passed on to toys that were instructive,

such as cut-paper work. Pécuchet showed them his microscope. When the

candle was lighted, Bouvard would sketch with the shadow of his finger

on the wall the profile of a hare or a pig. But the pupils grew tired of

it.

Writers have gone into raptures about the delightfulness of an open-air

luncheon or a boating excursion. Was it possible for them really to have

such recreations? Fénelon recommends from time to time "an innocent

conversation." They could not invent one. So they had to come back to

the lessons--the multiplying bowls, the erasures of their scrawlings,

and the process of teaching them how to read by copying printed

characters. All had proved failures, when suddenly a bright idea struck

them.

As Victor was prone to gluttony, they showed him the name of a dish: he

soon ran through _Le Cuisinier Français_ with ease. Victorine, being a

coquette, was promised a new dress if she wrote to the dressmaker for

it: in less than three weeks she accomplished this feat. This was

playing on their vices--a pernicious method, no doubt; but it had

succeeded.

Now that they had learned to read and write, what should they be taught?

Another puzzle.

Girls have no need of learning, as in the case of boys. All the same,

they are usually brought up like mere animals, their sole intellectual

baggage being confined to mystical follies.

Is it expedient to teach them languages? "Spanish and Italian," the Swan

of Cambray lays down, "scarcely serve any purpose save to enable people

to read dangerous books."

Such a motive appeared silly to them. However, Victorine would have to

do only with these languages; whereas English is more widely used.

Pécuchet proceeded to study the rules of the language. He seriously

demonstrated the mode of expressing the "th"--"like this, now, _the_,

_the_, _the_."

But before instructing a child we must be acquainted with its aptitudes.

They may be divined by phrenology. They plunged into it, then sought to

verify its assertions by experiments on their own persons. Bouvard

exhibited the bumps of benevolence, imagination, veneration, and amorous

energy--_vulgo_, eroticism. On Pécuchet's temples were found philosophy

and enthusiasm allied with a crafty disposition. Such, in fact, were

their characters. What surprised them more was to recognise in the one

as well as in the other a propensity towards friendship, and, charmed

with the discovery, they embraced each other with emotion.

They next made an examination of Marcel. His greatest fault, of which

they were not ignorant, was an excessive appetite. Nevertheless Bouvard

and Pécuchet were dismayed to find above the top of the ear, on a level

with the eye, the organ of alimentivity. With advancing years their

servant would perhaps become like the woman in the Salpêtrière, who

every day ate eight pounds of bread, swallowed at one time fourteen

different soups, and at another sixty bowls of coffee. They might not

have enough to keep him.

The heads of their pupils presented no curious characteristics. No doubt

they had gone the wrong way to work with them. A very simple expedient

enabled them to develop their experience.

On market days they insinuated themselves among groups of country people

on the green, amid the sacks of oats, the baskets of cheese, the calves

and the horses, indifferent to the jostlings; and whenever they found a

young fellow with his father, they asked leave to feel his skull for a

scientific purpose. The majority vouchsafed no reply; others, fancying

it was pomatum for ringworm of the scalp, refused testily. A few,

through indifference, allowed themselves to be led towards the porch of

the church, where they would be undisturbed.

One morning, just as Bouvard and Pécuchet were beginning operations, the

curé suddenly presented himself, and seeing what they were about,

denounced phrenology as leading to materialism and to fatalism. The

thief, the assassin, the adulterer, have henceforth only to cast the

blame of their crimes on their bumps.

Bouvard retorted that the organ predisposes towards the act without

forcing one to do it. From the fact that a man has in him the germ of a

vice, there is nothing to show that he will be vicious.

"However, I wonder at the orthodox, for, while upholding innate ideas,

they reject propensities. What a contradiction!"

But phrenology, according to M. Jeufroy, denied Divine Omnipotence, and

it was unseemly to practise under the shadow of the holy place, in the

very face of the altar.

"Take yourselves off! No!--take yourselves off!"

They established themselves in the shop of Ganot, the hairdresser.

Bouvard and Pécuchet went so far as to treat their subjects' relations

to a shave or a clip. One afternoon the doctor came to get his hair cut.

While seating himself in the armchair he saw in the glass the reflection

of the two phrenologists passing their fingers over a child's pate.

"So you are at these fooleries?" he said.

"Why foolery?"

Vaucorbeil smiled contemptuously, then declared that there were not

several organs in the brain. Thus one man can digest food which another

cannot digest. Are we to assume that there are as many stomachs in the

stomach as there are varieties of taste?

They pointed out that one kind of work is a relaxation after another; an

intellectual effort does not strain all the faculties at the same time;

each has its distinct seat.

"The anatomists have not discovered it," said Vaucorbeil.

"That's because they have dissected badly," replied Pécuchet.

"What?"

"Oh, yes! they cut off slices without regard to the connection of the

parts"--a phrase out of a book which recurred to his mind.

"What a piece of nonsense!" exclaimed the physician. "The cranium is not

moulded over the brain, the exterior over the interior. Gall is

mistaken, and I defy you to justify his doctrine by taking at random

three persons in the shop."

The first was a country woman, with big blue eyes.

Pécuchet, looking at her, said:

"She has a good memory."

Her husband attested the fact, and offered himself for examination.

"Oh! you, my worthy fellow, it is hard to lead you."

According to the others, there was not in the world such a headstrong

fellow.

The third experiment was made on a boy who was accompanied by his

grandmother.

Pécuchet observed that he must be fond of music.

"I assure you it is so," said the good woman. "Show these gentlemen,

that they may see for themselves."

He drew a Jew's-harp from under his blouse and began blowing into it.

There was a crashing sound--it was the violent slamming of the door by

the doctor as he went out.

They were no longer in doubt about themselves, and summoning their two

pupils, they resumed the analysis of their skull-bones.

That of Victorine was even all around, a sign of ponderation; but her

brother had an unfortunate cranium--a very large protuberance in the

mastoid angle of the parietal bones indicated the organ of

destructiveness, of murder; and a swelling farther down was the sign of

covetousness, of theft. Bouvard and Pécuchet remained dejected for eight

days.

But it was necessary to comprehend the exact sense of words: what we

call combativeness implies contempt for death. If it causes homicides,

it may, likewise bring about the saving of lives. Acquisitiveness

includes the tact of pickpockets and the ardour of merchants.

Irreverence has its parallel in the spirit of criticism, craft in

circumspection. An instinct always resolves itself into two parts, a bad

one and a good one. The one may be destroyed by cultivating the other,

and by this system a daring child, far from being a vagabond, may become

a general. The sluggish man will have only prudence; the penurious,

economy; the extravagant, generosity.

A magnificent dream filled their minds. If they carried to a successful

end the education of their pupils, they would later found an

establishment having for its object to correct the intellect, to subdue

tempers, and to ennoble the heart. Already they talked about

subscriptions and about the building.

Their triumph in Ganot's shop had made them famous, and people came to

consult them in order that they might tell them their chances of good

luck.

All sorts of skulls were examined for this purpose--bowl-shaped,

pear-shaped, those rising like sugar loaves, square heads, high heads,

contracted skulls and flat skulls, with bulls' jaws, birds' faces, and

eyes like pigs'; but such a crowd of people disturbed the hairdresser in

his work. Their elbows rubbed against the glass cupboard that contained

the perfumery, they put the combs out of order, the wash-hand stand was

broken; so he turned out all the idlers, begging of Bouvard and Pécuchet

to follow them, an ultimatum which they unmurmuringly accepted, being a

little worn out with cranioscopy.

Next day, as they were passing before the little garden of the captain,

they saw, chatting with him, Girbal, Coulon, the keeper, and his younger

son, Zephyrin, dressed as an altar-boy. His robe was quite new, and he

was walking below before returning to the sacristy, and they were

complimenting him.

Curious to know what they thought of him, Placquevent asked "these

gentlemen" to feel his young man's head.

The skin of his forehead looked tightly drawn; his nose, thin and very

gristly at the tip, drooped slantwise over his pinched lips; his chin

was pointed, his expression evasive, and his right shoulder was too

high.

"Take off your cap," said his father to him.

Bouvard slipped his hands through his straw-coloured hair; then it was

Pécuchet's turn, and they communicated to each other their observations

in low tones:

"Evident _love of books_! Ha! ha! _approbativeness_! _Conscientiousness_

wanting! No _amativeness_!"

"Well?" said the keeper.

Pécuchet opened his snuff-box, and took a pinch.

"Faith!" replied Bouvard, "this is scarcely a genius."

Placquevent reddened with humiliation.

"All the same, he will do my bidding."

"Oho! Oho!"

"But I am his father, by God! and I have certainly the right----"

"Within certain limits," observed Pécuchet.

Girbal interposed. "The paternal authority is indispensable."

"But if the father is an idiot?"

"No matter," said the captain; "his power is none the less absolute."

"In the interests of the children," added Coulon.

According to Bouvard and Pécuchet, they owed nothing to the authors of

their being; and the parents, on the other hand, owed them food,

education, forethought--in fact, everything.

Their good neighbours protested against this opinion as immoral.

Placquevent was hurt by it as if it were an insult.

"For all that, they are a nice lot that you collect on the high-roads.

They will go far. Take care!"

"Care of what?" said Pécuchet sourly.

"Oh! I am not afraid of you."

"Nor I of you either."

Coulon here used his influence to restrain the keeper and induce him to

go away quietly.

For some minutes there was silence. Then there was some talk about the

dahlias of the captain, who would not let his friends depart till he had

exhibited every one of them.

Bouvard and Pécuchet were returning homeward when, a hundred paces in

front of them, they noticed Placquevent; and close beside him Zephyrin

was lifting up his elbow, like a shield, to save his ear from being

boxed.

What they had just heard expressed, in another form, were the opinions

of the count; but the example of their pupils proved how much liberty

had the advantage over coercion. However, a little discipline was

desirable.

Pécuchet nailed up a blackboard in the museum for the purpose of

demonstrations. They each resolved to keep a journal wherein the things

done by the pupil, noted down every evening, could be read next morning,

and, to regulate the work by ringing the bell when it should be

finished. Like Dupont de Nemours, they would, at first, make use of the

paternal injunction, then of the military injunction, and familiarity in

addressing them would be forbidden.

Bouvard tried to teach Victorine ciphering. Sometimes he would make

mistakes, and both of them would laugh. Then she would kiss him on the

part of his neck which was smoothest and ask leave to go, and he would

give his permission.

Pécuchet at the hour for lessons in vain rang the bell and shouted out

the military injunction through the window. The brat did not come. His

socks were always hanging over his ankles; even at table he thrust his

fingers into his nostrils, and did not even keep in his wind. Broussais

objects to reprimands on this point on the ground that "it is necessary

to obey the promptings of a conservative instinct."

Victorine and he made use of frightful language, saying, _mé itou_

instead of _moi aussi_, _bère_ instead of _boire_, _al_ instead of

_elle_, and _deventiau_ with the _iau_; but, as grammar cannot be

understood by children, and as they would learn the use of language by

hearing others speak correctly, the two worthy men watched their own

words till they found it quite distressing.

They held different views about the way to teach geography. Bouvard

thought it more logical to begin with the commune, Pécuchet with the

entire world.

With a watering-pot and some sand he sought to demonstrate what was

meant by a river, an island, a gulf, and even sacrificed three

flower-beds to explain three continents; but the cardinal points could

not be got into Victor's head.

On a night in January Pécuchet carried him off in the open country.

While they walked along he held forth on astronomy: mariners find it

useful on their voyages; without it Christopher Columbus would not have

made his discovery. We owe a debt of gratitude to Copernicus, to

Galileo, and to Newton.

It was freezing hard, and in the dark blue sky countless stars were

scintillating. Pécuchet raised his eyes.

"What! No Ursa Major!"

The last time he had seen it, it was turned to the other side. At length

he recognised it, then pointed out the polar star, which is always

turned towards the north, and by means of which travellers can find out

their exact situation.

Next day he placed an armchair in the middle of the room and began to

waltz round it.

"Imagine that this armchair is the sun and that I am the earth; it moves

like this."

Victor stared at him, filled with astonishment.

After this he took an orange, passed through it a piece of stick to

indicate the poles, then drew a circle across it with charcoal to mark

the equator. He next moved the orange round a wax candle, drawing

attention to the fact that the various points on the surface were not

illuminated at the same time--which causes the difference of climates;

and for that of the seasons he sloped the orange, inasmuch as the earth

does not stand up straight--which brings about the equinoxes and the

solstices.

Victor did not understand a bit of it. He believed that the earth turns

around in a long needle, and that the equator is a ring pressing its

circumference.

By means of an atlas Pécuchet exhibited Europe to him; but, dazzled by

so many lines and colours, he could no longer distinguish the names of

different places. The bays and the mountains did not harmonise with the

respective nations; the political order confused the physical order. All

this, perhaps, might be cleared up by studying history.

It would have been more practical to begin with the village, and go on

next to the arrondissement, the department, and the province; but, as

Chavignolles had no annals, it was absolutely necessary to stick to

universal history. It was rendered embarrassing by such a variety of

details that one ought only to select its beautiful features. For Greek

history there are: "We shall fight in the shade," the banishment of

Aristides by the envious, and the confidence of Alexander in his

physician. For Roman, the geese of the Capitol, the tripod of Scævola,

the barrel of Regulus. The bed of roses of Guatimozin is noteworthy for

America. As for France, it supplies the vase of Soissons, the oak of St.

Louis, the death of Joan of Arc, the boiled hen of Bearnais--you have

only too extensive a field to select from, not to speak of _À moi

d'Auvergne!_ and the shipwreck of the _Vengeur_.

Victor confused the men, the centuries, and the countries. Pécuchet,

however, was not going to plunge him into subtle considerations, and the

mass of facts is a veritable labyrinth. He confined himself to the names

of the kings of France. Victor forgot them through not knowing the

dates. But, if Dumouchel's system of mnemonics had been insufficient for

themselves, what would it be for him! Conclusion: history can be learned

only by reading a great deal. He would do this.

Drawing is useful where there are numerous details; and Pécuchet was

courageous enough to try to learn it himself from Nature by working at

the landscape forthwith. A bookseller at Bayeux sent him paper,

india-rubber, pasteboard, pencils, and fixtures, with a view to the

works, which, framed and glazed, would adorn the museum.

Out of bed at dawn, they started each with a piece of bread in his

pocket, and much time was lost in finding a suitable scene. Pécuchet

wished to reproduce what he found under his feet, the extreme horizon,

and the clouds, all at the same time; but the backgrounds always got the

better of the foregrounds; the river tumbled down from the sky; the

shepherd walked over his flock; and a dog asleep looked as if he were

hunting. For his part, he gave it up, remembering that he had read this

definition:

"Drawing is composed of three things: line, grain, and fine graining,

and, furthermore, the powerful touch. But it is only the master who can

give the powerful touch."

He rectified the line, assisted in the graining process, watched over

the fine graining, and waited for the opportunity of giving the powerful

touch. It never arrived, so incomprehensible was the pupil's landscape.

Victorine, who was very lazy, used to yawn over the multiplication

table. Mademoiselle Reine showed her how to stitch, and when she was

marking linen she lifted her fingers so nicely that Bouvard afterwards

had not the heart to torment her with his lesson in ciphering. One of

these days they would resume it. No doubt arithmetic and sewing are

necessary in a household; but it is cruel, Pécuchet urged, to bring up

girls merely with an eye to the husbands they might marry. Not all of

them are destined for wedlock; if we wish them later to do without men,

we ought to teach them many things.

The sciences can be taught in connection with the commonest objects; for

instance, by telling what wine is made of; and when the explanation was

given, Victor and Victorine had to repeat it. It was the same with

groceries, furniture, illumination; but for them light meant the lamp,

and it had nothing in common with the spark of a flint, the flame of a

candle, the radiance of the moon.

One day Victorine asked, "How is it that wood burns?" Her masters looked

at each other in confusion. The theory of combustion was beyond them.

Another time Bouvard, from the soup to the cheese, kept talking of

nutritious elements, and dazed the two youngsters with fibrine, caseine,

fat and gluten.

After this, Pécuchet desired to explain to them how the blood is

renewed, and he became puzzled over the explanation of circulation.

The dilemma is not an easy one; if you start with facts, the simplest

require proofs that are too involved, and by laying down principles

first, you begin with the absolute--faith.

How is it to be solved? By combining the two methods of teaching, the

rational and the empirical; but a double means towards a single end is

the reverse of method. Ah! so much the worse, then.

To initiate them in natural history, they tried some scientific

excursions.

"You see," said they, pointing towards an ass, a horse, an ox, "beasts

with four feet--they are called quadrupeds. As a rule, birds have

feathers, reptiles scales, and butterflies belong to the insect class."

They had a net to catch them with, and Pécuchet, holding the insect up

daintily, made them take notice of the four wings, the six claws, the

two feelers, and of its bony proboscis, which drinks in the nectar of

flowers.

He gathered herbs behind the ditches, mentioned their names, and, when

he did not know them, invented them, in order to keep up his prestige.

Besides, nomenclature is the least important thing in botany.

He wrote this axiom on the blackboard: "Every plant has leaves, a calyx,

and a corolla enclosing an ovary or pericarp, which contains the seed."

Then he ordered his pupils to go looking for plants through the fields,

and to collect the first that came to hand.

Victor brought him buttercups; Victorine a bunch of strawberries. He

searched vainly for the pericarp.

Bouvard, who distrusted his own knowledge, rummaged in the library, and

discovered in _Le Redouté des Dames_ a sketch of an iris in which the

ovaries were not situated in the corolla, but beneath the petals in the

stem. In their garden were some scratchweeds and lilies-of-the-valley in

flower. These rubiaceæ had no calyx; therefore the principle laid down

on the blackboard was false.

"It is an exception," said Pécuchet.

But chance led to the discovery of a field-madder in the grass, and it

had a calyx.

"Goodness gracious! If the exceptions themselves are not true, what are

we to put any reliance on?"

One day, in one of these excursions, they heard the cries of peacocks,

glanced over the wall, and at first did not recognise their own farm.

The barn had a slate roof; the railings were new; the pathways had been

metalled.

Père Gouy made his appearance.

"'Tisn't possible! Is it you?"

How many sad stories he had to tell of the past three years, amongst

others the death of his wife! As for himself, he had always been as

strong as an oak.

"Come in a minute."

It was early in April, and in the three fruit-gardens rows of apple

trees in full blossom showed their white and red clusters; the sky,

which was like blue satin, was perfectly cloudless. Table-cloths,

sheets, and napkins hung down, vertically attached to tightly-drawn

ropes by wooden pins. Père Gouy lifted them as they passed; and suddenly

they came face to face with Madame Bordin, bareheaded, in a

dressing-gown, and Marianne offering her armfuls of linen.

"Your servant, gentlemen. Make yourselves at home. As for me, I shall

sit down; I am worn out."

The farmer offered to get some refreshment for the entire party.

"Not now," said she; "I am too hot."

Pécuchet consented, and disappeared into the cellar with Père Gouy,

Marianne and Victor.

Bouvard sat down on the grass beside Madame Bordin.

He received the annual payment punctually; he had nothing to complain

of; and he wished for nothing more.

The bright sunshine lighted up her profile. One of her black head-bands

had come loose, and the little curls behind her neck clung to her brown

skin, moistened with perspiration. With each breath her bosom heaved.

The smell of the grass mingled with the odour of her solid flesh, and

Bouvard felt a revival of his attachment, which filled him with joy.

Then he complimented her about her property.

She was greatly charmed with it; and she told him about her plans. In

order to enlarge the farmyard, she intended to take down the upper bank.

Victorine was at that moment climbing up the slopes, and gathering

primroses, hyacinths, and violets, without being afraid of an old horse

that was browsing on the grass at her feet.

"Isn't she pretty?" said Bouvard.

"Yes, she is pretty, for a little girl."

And the widow heaved a sigh, which seemed charged with life-long regret.

"You might have had one yourself."

She hung down her head.

"That depended on you."

"How?"

He gave her such a look that she grew purple, as if at the sensation of

a rough caress; but, immediately fanning herself with her

pocket-handkerchief:

"You have let the opportunity slip, my dear."

"I don't quite understand." And without rising he drew closer to her.

She remained looking down at him for some time; then smiling, with moist

eyes:

"It is your fault."

The sheets, hanging around them, hemmed them in, like the curtains of a

bed.

He leaned forward on his elbow, so that his face touched her knees.

"Why?--eh?--why?"

And as she remained silent, while he was in a condition in which words

cost nothing, he tried to justify himself; accused himself of folly, of

pride.

"Forgive me! Let everything be as it was before. Do you wish it?" And he

caught her hand, which she allowed to remain in his.

A sudden gust of wind blew up the sheets, and they saw two peacocks, a

male and a female. The female stood motionless, with her tail in the

air. The male marched around her, erected his tail into a fan and

bridled up, making a clucking noise.

Bouvard was clasping the hand of Madame Bordin. She very quickly loosed

herself. Before them, open-mouthed and, as it were, petrified, was young

Victor staring at them; a short distance away Victorine, stretched on

her back, in the full light of day, was inhaling all the flowers which

she had gathered.

The old horse, frightened by the peacocks, broke one of the lines with a

kick, got his legs entangled in it, and, galloping through the

farmyard, dragged the washed linen after him.

At Madame Bordin's wild screams Marianne rushed up. Pére Gouy abused his

horse: "Fool of a beast! Old bag of bones! Infernal thief of a

horse!"--kicked him in the belly, and lashed his ears with the handle of

a whip.

Bouvard was shocked at seeing the animal maltreated.

The countryman, in answer to his protest, said:

"I've a right to do it; he's my own."

This was no justification. And Pécuchet, coming on the scene, added that

animals too have their rights, for they have souls like ourselves--if

indeed ours have any existence.

"You are an impious man!" exclaimed Madame Bordin.

Three things excited her anger: the necessity for beginning the washing

over again, the outrage on her faith, and the fear of having been seen

just now in a compromising attitude.

"I thought you were more liberal," said Bouvard.

She replied, in a magisterial manner, "I don't like scamps."

And Gouy laid the blame on them for having injured his horse, whose

nostrils were bleeding. He growled in a smothered voice:

"Damned unlucky people! I was going to put him away when they turned

up."

The two worthies took themselves off, shrugging their shoulders.

Victor asked them why they had been vexed with Gouy.

"He abuses his strength, which is wrong."

"Why is it wrong?"

Could it be that the children had no idea of justice? Perhaps so.

And the same evening, Pécuchet, with Bouvard sitting at his right, and

facing the two pupils with some notes in his hand, began a course of

lectures on morality.

"This science teaches us to exercise control over our actions.

"They have two motives--pleasure and interest, and a third, more

imperious--duty.

"Duties are divided into two classes: first, duties towards ourselves,

which consist in taking care of our bodies, protecting ourselves against

all injury." (They understood this perfectly.) "Secondly, duties towards

others; that is to say, to be always loyal, good-natured, and even

fraternal, the human race being only one single family. A thing often

pleases us which is injurious to our fellows; interest is a different

thing from good, for good is in itself irreducible." (The children did

not comprehend.) He put off the sanction of duties until the next

occasion.

In the entire lecture, according to Bouvard, he had not defined "good."

"Why do you wish to define it? We feel it."

So, then, the lessons of morality would suit only moral people--and

Pécuchet's course did not go further.

They made their pupils read little tales tending to inspire them with

the love of virtue. They plagued Victor to death.

In order to strike his imagination, Pécuchet suspended from the walls of

his apartment representations of the lives of the good person and the

bad person respectively. The first, Adolphe, embraced his mother,

studied German, assisted a blind man, and was admitted into the

Polytechnic School. The bad person, Eugène, began by disobeying his

father, had a quarrel in a café, beat his wife, fell down dead drunk,

smashed a cupboard--and a final picture represented him in jail, where a

gentleman, accompanied by a young lad, pointed him out, saying, "You

see, my son, the dangers of misconduct."

But for the children, the future had no existence. In vain were their

minds saturated with the maxim that "work is honourable," and that "the

rich are sometimes unhappy." They had known workmen in no way honoured,

and had recollections of the château, where life seemed good. The pangs

of remorse were depicted for them with so much exaggeration that they

smelled humbug, and after that became distrustful. Attempts were then

made to govern their conduct by a sense of honour, the idea of public

opinion, and the sentiment of glory, by holding up to their admiration

great men; above all, men who made themselves useful, like Belzunce,

Franklin, and Jacquard. Victor displayed no longing to resemble them.

One day, when he had done a sum in addition without a mistake, Bouvard

sewed to his jacket a ribbon to symbolise the Cross. He strutted about

with it; but, when he forgot about the death of Henry IV., Pécuchet put

an ass's cap on his head. Victor began to bray with so much violence and

for so long a time, that it was found necessary to take off his

pasteboard ears.

Like him, his sister showed herself vain of praise, and indifferent to

blame.

In order to make them more sensitive, a black cat was given to them,

that they might take care of it; and two or three coppers were presented

to them, so that they might bestow alms. They thought the requirement

unjust; this money belonged to them.

In compliance with the wish of the pedagogues, they called Bouvard "my

uncle," and Pécuchet "good friend;" but they "thee'd" and "thou'd" them,

and half the lessons were usually lost in disputes.

Victorine ill-treated Marcel, mounted on his back, dragged him by the

hair. In order to make game of his hare-lip, she spoke through her nose

like him; and the poor fellow did not venture to complain, so fond was

he of the little girl. One evening his hoarse voice was unusually

raised. Bouvard and Pécuchet went down to the kitchen. The two pupils

were staring at the chimneypiece, and Marcel, with clasped hands, was

crying out:

"Take him away! It's too much--it's too much!"

The lid of the pot flew off like the bursting of a shell. A greyish mass

bounded towards the ceiling, then wriggled about frantically, emitting

fearful howls.

They recognised the cat, quite emaciated, with its hair gone, its tail

like a piece of string, and its dilated eyes starting out of its head.

They were as white as milk, vacant, so to speak, and yet glaring.

The hideous animal continued its howling till it flung itself into the

fireplace, disappeared, then rolled back in the middle of the cinders

lifeless.

It was Victor who had perpetrated this atrocity; and the two worthy men

recoiled, pale with stupefaction and horror. To the reproaches which

they addressed to him, he replied, as the keeper had done with reference

to his son and the farmer with reference to his horse: "Well! since it's

my own," without ceremony and with an air of innocence, in the placidity

of a satiated instinct.

The boiling water from the pot was scattered over the floor, and

saucepans, tongs, and candlesticks lay everywhere thrown about.

Marcel was some time cleaning up the kitchen, and his masters and he

buried the poor cat in the garden under the pagoda.

After this Bouvard and Pécuchet had a long chat about Victor. The

paternal blood was showing itself. What were they to do? To give him

back to M. de Faverges or to entrust him to others would be an admission

of impotence. Perhaps he would reform.

No matter! It was a doubtful hope; and they no longer felt any

tenderness towards him. What a pleasure it would have been, however, to

have near them a youth interested in their ideas, whose progress they

could watch, who would by and by have become a brother to them! But

Victor lacked intellect, and heart still more. And Pécuchet sighed, with

his hands clasped over his bent knee.

"The sister is not much better," said Bouvard.

He pictured to himself a girl of nearly fifteen years, with a refined

nature, a playful humour, adorning the house with the elegant tastes of

a young lady; and, as if he had been her father and she had just died,

the poor man began to weep.

Then, seeking an excuse for Victor, he quoted Rousseau's opinion: "The

child has no responsibility, and cannot be moral or immoral."

Pécuchet's view was that these children had reached the age of

discretion, and that they should study some method whereby they could be

corrected. Bentham lays down that a punishment, in order to be

effectual, should be in proportion to the offence--its natural

consequence. The child has broken a pane of glass--a new one will not be

put in: let him suffer from cold. If, not being hungry any longer, he

asks to be served again, give way to him: a fit of indigestion will

quickly make him repent. Suppose he is lazy--let him remain without

work: boredom of itself will make him go back to it.

But Victor would not endure cold; his constitution could stand excesses;

and doing nothing would agree with him.

They adopted the reverse system: medicinal punishment. Impositions were

given to him; he only became more idle. They deprived him of sweet

things; his greediness for them redoubled. Perhaps irony might have

success with him? On one occasion, when he came to breakfast with dirty

hands, Bouvard jeered at him, calling him a "gay cavalier," a "dandy,"

"yellow gloves." Victor listened with lowering brow, suddenly turned

pale, and flung his plate at Bouvard's head; then, wild at having missed

him, made a rush at him. It took three men to hold him. He rolled

himself on the floor, trying to bite. Pécuchet, at some distance,

sprinkled water over him out of a carafe: he immediately calmed down;

but for two days he was hoarse. The method had not proved of any use.

They adopted another. At the least symptom of anger, treating him as if

he were ill, they put him to bed. Victor was quite contented there, and

showed it by singing.

One day he took out of its place in the library an old cocoanut, and was

beginning to split it open, when Pécuchet came up:

"My cocoanut!"

It was a memento of Dumouchel! He had brought it from Paris to

Chavignolles. He raised his arms in indignation. Victor burst out

laughing. "Good friend" could not stand it any longer, and with one good

box sent him rolling to the end of the room, then, quivering with

emotion, went to complain to Bouvard.

Bouvard rebuked him.

"Are you crazy with your cocoanut? Blows only brutalise; terror

enervates. You are disgracing yourself!"

Pécuchet returned that corporal chastisements were sometimes

indispensable. Pestalozzi made use of them; and the celebrated

Melancthon confesses that without them he would have learned nothing.

His friend observed that cruel punishments, on the other hand, had

driven children to suicide. He had in his reading found examples of it.

Victor had barricaded himself in his room.

Bouvard parleyed with him outside the door, and, to make him open it,

promised him a plum tart.

From that time he grew worse.

There remained a method extolled by Monseigneur Dupanloup: "the severe

look." They tried to impress on their countenances a dreadful

expression, and they produced no effect.

"We have no longer any resource but to try religion."

Pécuchet protested. They had banished it from their programme.

But reasoning does not satisfy every want. The heart and the imagination

desire something else. The supernatural is for many souls indispensable.

So they resolved to send the children to catechism.

Reine offered to conduct them there. She again came to the house, and

knew how to make herself liked by her caressing ways.

Victorine suddenly changed, became shy, honey-tongued, knelt down before

the Madonna, admired the sacrifice of Abraham, and sneered disdainfully

at the name of Protestant.

She said that fasting had been enjoined upon her. They made inquiries:

it was not true. On the feast of Corpus Christi some damask violets

disappeared from one of the flower-beds to decorate the processional

altar: she impudently denied having cut them. At another time she took

from Bouvard twenty sous, which she placed at vesper-time in the

sacristan's collecting-plate.

They drew from this the conclusion that morality is distinguishable from

religion; when it has not another basis, its importance is secondary.

One evening, while they were dining, M. Marescot entered. Victor fled

immediately.

The notary, having declined to sit down, told what had brought him

there.

Young Touache had beaten--all but killed--his son. As Victor's origin

was known, and as he was unpopular, the other brats called him

"Convict," and not long since he had given Master Arnold Marescot a

drubbing, which was an insult. "Dear Arnold" bore the marks of it on his

body.

"His mother is in despair, his clothes are in rags, his health is

imperilled. What are we coming to?"

The notary insisted on severe chastisement, and, amongst other things,

on Victor being henceforth kept away from catechism, to prevent fresh

collisions.

Bouvard and Pécuchet, although wounded by his haughty tone, promised

everything he wished--yielded.

Had Victor obeyed a sentiment of honour or of revenge? In any case, he

was no coward.

But his brutality frightened them. Music softens manners. Pécuchet

conceived the notion of teaching him the solfeggio.

Victor had much difficulty in reading the notes readily and not

confounding the terms _adagio_, _presto_, and _sforzando_. His master

strove to explain to him the gamut, perfect harmony, the diatonic, the

chromatic, and the two kinds of intervals called major and minor.

He made him stand up straight, with his chest advanced, his shoulders

thrown back, his mouth wide open, and, in order to teach by example,

gave out intonations in a voice that was out of tune. Victor's voice

came forth painfully from his larynx, so contracted was it. When the bar

began with a crotchet rest, he started either too soon or too late.

Nevertheless Pécuchet took up an air in two parts. He used a rod as a

substitute for a fiddle-stick, and moved his arm like a conductor, as if

he had an orchestra behind him; but, engaged as he was in two tasks, he

sometimes made a mistake; his blunder led to others on the part of the

pupil; and, knitting their brows, straining the muscles of their necks,

they went on at random down to the end of the page.

At length Pécuchet said to Victor:

"You're not likely to shine in a choral society."

And he abandoned the teaching of music.

Besides, perhaps Locke is right: "Music is associated with so much

profligate company that it is better to occupy oneself with something

else."

Without desiring to make an author of him, it would be convenient for

Victor to know how to despatch a letter. A reflection stopped them: the

epistolary style cannot be acquired, for it belongs exclusively to

women.

They next thought of cramming his memory with literary fragments, and,

perplexed about making selections, consulted Madame Campan's work. She

recommends the scene of Eliakim, the choruses in _Esther_, and the

entire works of Jean Baptiste Rousseau.

These are a little old-fashioned. As for romances, she prohibits them,

as depicting the world under too favourable colours. However, she

permits _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _The Father of a Family_, by Mrs.

Opie.[A] Who is this Mrs. Opie?

[A] This is possibly a reference to that once celebrated specimen of

English didactic fiction, _Fathers and Daughters_, by Mrs. Amelia

Opie.--TRANSLATOR.

They did not find her name in the Biographie of Michaud.

There remained fairy tales. "They would be expecting palaces of

diamonds," said Pécuchet. Literature develops the intellect, but excites

the passions.

Victorine was sent away from catechism on account of her conduct. She

had been caught kissing the notary's son, and Reine made no joke of it:

her face looked grave under her cap with its big frills.

After such a scandal, why keep a young girl so corrupted?

Bouvard and Pécuchet called the curé an old fool. His housekeeper

defended him, muttering:

"We know you!--we know you!"

They made a sharp rejoinder, and she went off rolling her eyes in a

fearful manner.

Victorine was, in fact, smitten with a fancy for Arnold, so nice did she

think him, with his embroidered collar, his velvet jacket, and his

well-scented hair; and she had been bringing bouquets to him up to the

time when Zephyrin told about her.

What foolishness was exhibited regarding this adventure, the two

children being perfectly innocent!

The two guardians thought Victor required a stirring amusement like

hunting; this would lead to the expense of a gun, of a dog. They thought

it better to fatigue him, in order to tame the exuberance of his animal

spirits, and went in for coursing in the fields.

The young fellow escaped from them, although they relieved each other.

They could do nothing more; and in the evening they had not the strength

to hold up the newspaper.

Whilst they were waiting for Victor they talked to the passers-by, and

through the sheer necessity of playing the pedagogue, they tried to

teach them hygiene, deplored the injuries from floods and the waste of

manures, thundered against such superstitions as leaving the skeleton of

a blackbird in a barn, putting consecrated wood at the end of a stable

and a bag of worms on the big toes of people suffering from fever.

They next took to inspecting wet nurses, and were incensed at their

management of babies: some soaked them in gruel, causing them to die of

exhaustion; others stuffed them with meat before they were six months

old, and so they fell victims to indigestion; several cleaned them with

their own spittle; all managed them barbarously.

When they saw over a door an owl that had been crucified, they went into

the farmhouse and said:

"You are wrong; these animals live on rats and field-mice. There has

been found in a screech-owl's stomach a quantity of caterpillars'

larvæ."

The country-folk knew them from having seen them, in the first place, as

physicians, then searching for old furniture, and afterwards looking for

stones; and they replied:

"Come, now, you pair of play-actors! don't try to teach us."

Their conviction was shaken, for the sparrows cleanse the

kitchen-gardens, but eat up the cherries. The owls devour insects, and

at the same time bats, which are useful; and, if the moles eat the

slugs, they upset the soil. There was one thing of which they were

certain: that all game should be destroyed as fatal to agriculture.

One evening, as they were passing along by the wood of Faverges, they

found themselves in front of Sorel's house, at the side of the road.

Sorel was gesticulating in the presence of three persons. The first was

a certain Dauphin, a cobbler, small, thin, and with a sly expression of

countenance; the second, Père Aubain, a village porter, wore an old

yellow frock-coat, with a pair of coarse blue linen trousers; the

third, Eugène, a man-servant employed by M. Marescot, was distinguished

by his beard cut like that of a magistrate.

Sorel was showing them a noose in copper wire attached to a silk thread,

which was held by a clamp--what is called a snare--and he had discovered

the cobbler in the act of setting it.

"You are witnesses, are you not?"

Eugène lowered his chin by way of assent, and Père Aubain replied:

"Once you say so."

What enraged Sorel was that anyone should have the audacity to set up a

snare at the entrance of his lodge, the rascal imagining that one would

have no idea of suspecting it in such a place.

Dauphin adopted the blubbering system:

"I was walking over it; I even tried to break it." They were always

accusing him. They had a grudge against him; he was most unlucky.

Sorel, without answering him, had drawn out of his pocket a note-book

and a pen and ink, in order to make out an official report.

"Oh, no!" said Pécuchet.

Bouvard added: "Let him go. He is a decent fellow."

"He--a poacher!"

"Well, such things will happen."

And they proceeded to defend poaching: "We know, to start with, that the

rabbits nibble at the young sprouts, and that the hares destroy the corn

crops--except, perhaps, the woodcock----"

"Let me alone, now." And the gamekeeper went on writing with clenched

teeth.

"What obstinacy!" murmured Bouvard.

"Another word, and I shall send for the gendarmes!

"You are an ill-mannered fellow!" said Pécuchet.

"You are no great things!" retorted Sorel.

Bouvard, forgetting himself, referred to him as a blockhead, a bully;

and Eugène kept repeating, "Peace! peace! let us respect the law"; while

Père Aubain was groaning three paces away from them on a heap of

pebbles.

Disturbed by these voices, all the dogs of the pack rushed out of their

kennels. Through the railings their black snouts could be seen, and,

rushing hither and thither they kept barking loudly.

"Don't plague me further," cried their master, "or I'll make them go for

your breeches!"

The two friends departed, satisfied, however, with having upheld

progress and civilisation.

Next day a summons was served on them to appear at the police court for

offering insults to the gamekeeper, and to pay a hundred francs'

compensation, "reserving an appeal to the public administration, having

regard to the contraventions committed by them. Costs: 6 francs 75

centimes.--TIERCELIN, Summoner."

Wherefore a public administration? Their heads became giddy; then,

becoming calm, they set about preparing their defence.

On the day named, Bouvard and Pécuchet repaired to the court-house an

hour too early. No one was there; chairs and three cushioned seats

surrounded an oval table covered with a cloth; a niche had been made in

the wall for the purpose of placing a stove there; and the Emperor's

bust, which was on a pedestal, overlooked the scene.

They strolled up to the top room of the building, where there was a

fire-engine, a number of flags, and in a corner, on the floor, other

plaster busts--the great Napoleon without a diadem; Louis XVIII. with

epaulets on a dress-coat; Charles X., recognisable by his hanging lip;

Louis Philippe, with arched eyebrows and hair dressed in pyramid

fashion, the slope of the roof grazing the nape of his neck; and all

these objects were befouled by flies and dust. This spectacle had a

demoralising effect on Bouvard and Pécuchet. Governing powers excited

their pity as they made their way back to the main hall.

There they found Sorel and the field-keeper, the one wearing his badge

on his arm, and the other his military cap.

A dozen persons were talking, having been summoned for not having swept

in front of their houses, or for having let their dogs go at large, or

neglecting to attach lanterns to their carts, or for keeping a

public-house open during mass-time.

At length Coulon presented himself, wrapped in a robe of black serge and

wearing a round cap with velvet edgings. His clerk sat down at his left,

the mayor, scarfed, at his right; and shortly afterwards the case of

Sorel against Bouvard and Pécuchet was called.

Louis-Martial-Eugène Lenepveur, valet at Chavignolles (Calvados),

availed himself of his character as a witness to unburden himself of all

he knew about a great many things that were foreign to the issue.

Nicolas-Juste Aubain, day-labourer, was afraid both of displeasing Sorel

and of injuring "these gentlemen." He had heard abusive words, and yet

he had his doubts about it. He pleaded that he was deaf.

The justice of the peace made him sit down; then, addressing himself to

the gamekeeper: "Do you persist in your declarations?"

"Certainly."

Coulon then asked the two defendants what they had to say.

Bouvard maintained that he had not insulted Sorel, but that in taking

the poacher's part he had vindicated the rights of the peasantry. He

recalled the abuses of feudal times and the ruinous huntings of the

nobles.

"No matter! The contravention----"

"Allow me to stop you," exclaimed Pécuchet.

The words "contravention," "crime," and "delict" were of no value. To

seek in this way to class punishable acts was to take an arbitrary

basis. As much as to say to citizens: "Don't bother yourself as to the

value of your actions; that is determined by the punishment inflicted by

authority." However, the penal code appeared to him an absurd production

devoid of principles.

"That may be," replied Coulon; and he proceeded to pronounce his

judgment.

But here Foureau, who represented the public administration, arose. They

had outraged the gamekeeper in the exercise of his functions. If no

regard were shown for propriety, everything would be destroyed.

"In short, may it please Monsieur the Justice of the Peace to apply the

maximum penalty."

This was ten francs, in the form of damages to Sorel.

"Bravo!" exclaimed Bouvard.

Coulon had not finished.

"Impose on them, in addition, a fine of five francs for having been

guilty of the contravention mentioned by the public administration."

Pécuchet turned around to the audience:

"The fine is a trifle to the rich man, but a disaster to the poor man.

As for myself, it matters nothing to me."

And he presented the appearance of defying the court.

"Really," said Coulon, "I am astonished that people of intelligence----"

"The law dispenses you from the possession of it," retorted Pécuchet.

"The justice of the peace occupies his post indefinitely, while the

judge of the supreme court is reputed capable up to seventy-five years,

and the judge of first instance is no longer so at seventy."

But, at a gesture from Foureau, Placquevent advanced.

They protested.

"Ah! if you were appointed by competition!"

"Or by the General Council!"

"Or a committee of experts, and according to a proper list!"

Placquevent moved them on, and they went out while the other defendants'

names were being called, believing that they had made a good show in the

course of these vile proceedings.

To give vent to their indignation they went that evening to Beljambe's

hostelry. His café was empty, the principal customers being in the habit

of leaving about ten o'clock. The lamp had been lowered; the walls and

the counter seemed shrouded in a fog. A female attendant came on the

scene. It was Mélie. She did not appear agitated, and, smiling, she

poured them out two bocks. Pécuchet, ill at ease, quickly left the

establishment.

Bouvard came back there alone, entertained some of the villagers with

sarcasms at the mayor's expense, and after that went into the

smoking-room.

Six months later Dauphin was acquitted for want of evidence. What a

shame! These very witnesses who had been believed when testifying

against them were now regarded with suspicion. And their anger knew no

bounds when the registrar gave them notice to pay the fine. Bouvard

attacked the registry as injurious to property.

"You are mistaken," said the collector. "Why, it bears a third of the

public expenditure!"

"I would have proceedings with regard to taxes less vexatious, a better

system of land registration, alterations in the law as to mortgages, and

would abolish the Bank of France, which has the privilege of usury."

Girbal, not being strong on the subject, let the argument fall to the

ground, and departed. However, Bouvard made himself agreeable to the

innkeeper; he would attract a crowd around him; and, while he was

waiting for the guests, he chatted familiarly with the barmaid.

He gave utterance to odd ideas on primary education. On leaving school,

pupils ought to be capable of nursing the sick, understanding scientific

discoveries, and taking an interest in the arts. The requirements of his

programme made him fall out with Petit; and he offended the captain by

maintaining that soldiers, instead of losing their time with drilling,

would be better occupied in growing vegetables.

When the question of free trade turned up he brought Pécuchet along with

him, and the whole winter there were in the café angry looks,

contemptuous attitudes, insults and vociferations, with blows of fists

on the table that made the beer-glasses jump.

Langlois and the other merchants defended national commerce; Oudot,

owner of a spinning factory, and Mathieu, a goldsmith, national

industry; the landowners and the farmers, national agriculture: everyone

claiming privileges for himself to the detriment of the public at large.

The observations of Bouvard and Pécuchet had an alarming effect.

As they were accused of ignoring the practical side of life, of having a

tendency towards levelling, and of immorality, they developed these

three ideas: to replace the family name by a registered number; to

arrange the French people in a hierarchy, and in such a way that, in

order to preserve his grade, it would be necessary for one to submit

from time to time to an examination; no more punishments, no more

rewards, but in every village an individual chronicle of all persons

living there, which would pass on to posterity.

Their system was treated with disdain. They wrote an article about it

for the Bayeux daily paper, drew up a note to the prefect, a petition to

the Chambers, and a memorial to the Emperor.

The newspaper did not publish their article.

The prefect did not condescend to reply.

The Chambers were silent; and they waited a long time for a

communication from the Tuileries.

What, then, was the Emperor occupying his time with?

With women, no doubt.

Foureau, on the part of the sub-prefect, suggested the desirability of

more reserve.

They laughed at the sub-prefect, the prefect, the councillors of the

prefecture, even the council of state. Administrative justice was a

monstrosity, for the administration by means of favours and threats

unjustly controls its functionaries. In short, they came to be regarded

as a nuisance, and the leading men of the place gave injunctions to

Beljambe not to entertain two such fellows.

At this period, Bouvard and Pécuchet were burning to signalise

themselves by a work which would dazzle their neighbours; and they saw

nothing better than plans for the embellishment of Chavignolles.

Three fourths of the houses should be demolished. They would construct

in the centre of the village a monumental square, on the way to Falaise

a hospital, slaughter-houses on the way to Caen, and at the "Cows' Pass"

a Roman church of many colours.

Pécuchet manufactured a colouring mixture with Indian ink, and did not

forget in preparing his plans to give a yellow tint to the woods, a red

to the buildings, and a green to the meadows, for the pictures of an

ideal Chavignolles pursued him in his daydreams, and he came back to

them as he lay on his mattress.

Bouvard was awakened by him one night.

"Are you unwell?"

Pécuchet stammered, "Haussmann prevents me from going to sleep."

About this time he received a letter from Dumouchel to know the cost of

sea-baths on the Norman coast.

"Let him go about his business with his baths! Have we any time to

write?"

And, when they had procured a land-surveyor's chain, a semicircle, a

water-level, and a compass, they began at other studies.

They encroached on private properties. The inhabitants were frequently

surprised to see the pair fixing stakes in the ground for surveying

purposes. Bouvard and Pécuchet announced their plans, and what would be

the outcome of them, with the utmost self-complacency. The people became

uneasy, for, perchance, authority might at length fall in with these

men's views! Sometimes they rudely drove them away.

Victor scaled the walls and crept up to the roof to hang up signals

there; he exhibited good-will, and even a degree of enthusiasm.

They were also better satisfied with Victorine.

When she was ironing the linen she hummed in a sweet voice as she moved

her smoothing-iron over the board, interested herself in looking after

the household, and made a cap for Bouvard, with a well-pointed peak that

won compliments for her from Romiche.

This man was one of those tailors who go about mending clothes in

farmhouses. He was taken into the house for a fortnight.

Hunchbacked, with bloodshot eyes, he made up for his bodily defects by a

facetious disposition. While the masters were out, he used to amuse

Marcel and Victorine by telling them funny stories. He would put out his

tongue as far as his chin, imitate the cuckoo, or give exhibitions of

ventriloquism; and at night, saving the cost of an inn, he went to sleep

in the bakehouse.

Now, one morning, at a very early hour, Bouvard, being cold, happened to

go there to get chips to light his fire.

What he saw petrified him. Behind the remains of the chest, upon a straw

mattress, Romiche and Victorine lay asleep together.

He had passed his arm around her waist, and his other hand, long as that

of an ape, clutched one of her knees. She was smiling, stretched on her

back. Her fair hair hung loose, and the whiteness of the dawn threw its

pale light upon the pair.

Bouvard for a moment felt as if he had received a blow in the chest;

then a sense of shame prevented him from making a single movement. He

was oppressed by painful reflections.

"So young! Lost! lost!" He then went to awaken Pécuchet, and briefly

told him everything.

"Ah! the wretch!"

"We cannot help it. Be calm!" And for some time they remained sighing,

one after the other--Bouvard, with his coat off and his arms folded;

Pécuchet, at the side of his bed, sitting barefooted in a cotton

nightcap.

Romiche should leave that very day, when his work was finished. They

would pay him in a haughty fashion, and in silence.

But Providence had some spite against them.

Marcel, a short time afterwards, led them to Victor's room and showed

them at the bottom of his chest of drawers a twenty-franc piece. The

youngster had asked him to get the change of it.

Where did it come from? No doubt it was got by a theft committed while

they were going about as engineers. But in order to restore it they

would require to know the person; and if some one came to claim it they

would look like accomplices.

At length, having sent for Victor, they ordered him to open his drawer:

the napoleon was no longer there. He pretended not to understand. A

short time before, however, they had seen it, this very coin, and Marcel

was incapable of lying. This affair had revolutionised Pécuchet so much

that he had, since morning, kept in his pocket a letter for Bouvard:

"Sir,--Fearing lest M. Pécuchet may be ill, I have recourse to your

kindness----"

"Whose is the signature, then?"

"Olympe Dumouchel, _née_ Charpeau."

She and her husband were anxious to know in which

bathing-place--Courseulles, Langrune, or Lucques--the best society was

to be found, which was least noisy, and as to the means of transport,

the cost of washing, etc.

This importunity made them angry with Dumouchel; then weariness plunged

them into deeper despondency.

They went over all the pains that they had taken--so many lessons,

precautions, torments!

"And to think that we intended at one time to make Victorine a teacher,

and Victor an overseer of works!"

"Ah! how deceived we were in her!"

"If she is vicious, it is not the fault of the lessons she got."

"For my part, to make her virtuous, I would have learned Cartouche's

biography."

"Perhaps they needed family life--the care of a mother?"

"I was like one to them," protested Bouvard.

"Alas!" replied Pécuchet. "But there are natures bereft of moral sense;

and education in that case can do nothing."

"Ah! yes, 'tis a fine thing, education!"

As the orphans had not learned any trade, they would seek two situations

for them as servants; and then, with the help of God, they would have

nothing more to do with them.

And henceforth "My uncle" and "Good friend" made them take their meals

in the kitchen.

But soon they grew restless, their minds feeling the need of work, their

existence of an aim.

Besides, what does one failure prove? What had proved abortive in the

case of children might be more successful with men. And they conceived

the idea of preparing a course of lectures for adults.

In order to explain their views, a conference would be necessary. The

great hall of the inn would be perfectly suitable for this purpose.

Beljambe, as deputy mayor, was afraid to compromise himself, refused at

first, then, thinking that he might make something out of it, changed

his mind, and sent word to that effect by his servant-maid.

Bouvard, in the excess of his joy, kissed her on both cheeks.

The mayor was absent. The other deputy, M. Marescot, entirely taken up

with his office, would pay little attention to the conference. So it was

to take place; and, to the beating of the drum, the hour was announced

as three o'clock on the following Sunday.

It was only on the day before that they thought about their costumes.

Pécuchet, thank Heaven, had preserved an old ceremonial coat with a

velvet collar, two white cravats, and black gloves. Bouvard put on his

blue frock-coat, a nankeen waistcoat and beaver shoes; and they were

strongly moved when they had passed through the village and arrived at

the hostelry of the Golden Cross.

[_Here Gustave Flaubert's manuscript breaks off._]

[Illustration: decoration]

[EXTRACT FROM A PLAN FOUND AMONGST GUSTAVE FLAUBERT'S PAPERS INDICATING

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WORK.]

CONFERENCE

The inn of the Golden Cross--two wooden galleries at the sides on the

first floor, with projecting balcony; main building at the bottom; café

on the ground floor, dining-room, billiard-room; the doors and the

windows are open.

Crowd: people of rank, ordinary folk.

Bouvard: "The first thing to do is to demonstrate the utility of our

project; our studies entitle us to pronounce an opinion."

* * * * *

Discourse by Pécuchet of a pedantic description.

Follies of the government and of the administration. Too much taxation.

Two economies to be practised: the suppression of the religious and of

the military budget.

He is accused of atheism.

"Quite the contrary; but there is need of a religious renovation."

Foureau appears on the scene, and insists on dissolving the meeting.

Bouvard excites a laugh at the mayor's expense by recalling his idiotic

bounties for owls. Objection to this.

"If it is necessary to destroy animals that injure plants, it would

likewise be necessary to destroy the cattle that devour the grass."

Foureau withdraws.

* * * * *

Discourse by Bouvard--in a familiar style.

Prejudices: celibacy of priests, futility of adultery, emancipation of

woman.

"Her earrings are the symbol of her former servitude."

Studs of men.

* * * * *

Bouvard and Pécuchet are reproached with the misconduct of their pupils.

Also, why did they adopt the children of a convict?

Theory of rehabilitation. They would dine with Touache.

Foureau, having returned, reads, with a view to having revenge on

Bouvard, a petition from him to the municipal council, in which he asks

for the establishment of a brothel at Chavignolles. (Contemptuous

arguments.)

The meeting is brought to a close amid the utmost confusion.

* * * * *

On their return to their own residence, Bouvard and Pécuchet perceive

Foureau's man-servant galloping along the road from Falaise at full

speed.

They go to bed, quite jaded, without suspecting how many plots are

fermenting against them.--Explain the motives for ill-will towards them

actuating the curé, the physician, the mayor, Marescot, the people,

everybody.

* * * * *

Next day, at breakfast, they talk about the conference.

Pécuchet sees the future of humanity in dark colours.

The modern man is lessened, and has become a machine.

Final anarchy of the human race. (Buchner, I., II.)

Impossibility of peace. (_Id._) Savagery traceable to the excess of

individualism and the frenzy of science.

Three hypotheses--first: pantheistic radicalism will break every tie

with the past, and an inhuman despotism will result; second: if theistic

absolutism triumphs, the liberalism with which humanity has been

penetrated since the era of reform succumbs--all is thrown back; third:

if the convulsions which have been going on since '89 continue, without

an end between the two issues, these oscillations will carry us away by

their own force. There will be no longer ideal, religion, morality.

The United States will have conquered the earth.

Future of literature.

Universal greed. There will be no longer anything but a debauch of

workmen.

End of the world through the cessation of caloric.

* * * * *

Bouvard sees the future of humanity in a bright light. The modern man is

progressive.

Europe will be regenerated by Asia. The historic law that civilisation

travels from East to West--the part to be played by China--the two

humanities will at length be fused.

Future inventions: modes of travelling. Balloons. Submarine barges with

glass windows, in an unchanging calm, the sea's agitation being only on

the surface. Passing travellers shall see the fishes and the landscapes

in the ocean's depths. Animals tamed. All forms of cultivation.

Future of literature (opposite of industrial literature). Future

sciences.--How to regulate the force of magnetism.

Paris will become a winter-garden; fruit will be grown on the

boulevards; the Seine filtered and heated; abundance of precious stones

artificially made; prodigality as to gilding; lighting of houses--light

will be stored up, for there are bodies which possess this property,

such as sugar, the flesh of certain molluscs, and the phosphorus of

Bologna. People will be ordered to cover the fronts of the houses with a

phosphorescent substance, and the radiations from them will illuminate

the streets.

Disappearance of evil by the disappearance of want. Philosophy will be a

religion.

Communion of all peoples. Public fêtes.

People will travel to the heavenly bodies; and when the earth is used

up, humanity will set up housekeeping in the stars.

* * * * *

He has hardly finished when the gendarmes make their appearance. Entry

of the gendarmes.

At the sight of them the children are terror-stricken, owing to vague

recollections.

Marcel's desolation.

Anxiety on the part of Bouvard and Pécuchet. Do they mean to arrest

Victor?

The gendarmes exhibit an order to take them into custody.

It is the conference that brought it on. They are accused of having made

attempts on religion, on order, having roused people to revolt, etc.

Sudden arrival of M. and Madame Dumouchel with their baggage; they have

come to take sea-baths. Dumouchel is not changed; Madame wears

spectacles and composes fables. Their perplexity.

The mayor, knowing that the gendarmes are with Bouvard and Pécuchet,

arrives, encouraged by their presence.

Gorju, seeing that authority and public opinion are against them, has

thought of profiting by it, and escorts Foureau. Assuming Bouvard to be

the richer of the pair, he accuses him of having formerly debauched

Mélie.

"I? Never!"

Bouvard breaks into a loud exclamation.

"Let him at least make allowance for the child that is about to be born,

for she is pregnant."

This second accusation is based on the liberties taken with her by

Bouvard at the café.

The public gradually overrun the house.

Barberou, called into the country by a matter connected with his own

business, has just learned at the inn what is going on, and comes on the

scene.

He believes Bouvard to be guilty, takes him aside, and makes him promise

to yield and give the allowance.

Next comes the doctor, the count, Reine, Madame Bordin, Madame

Marescot, under her umbrella, and other persons of rank.

The village brats, outside the railing, scream out and fling stones into

the garden. (It is now well kept, and this makes the inhabitants

jealous.)

Foureau wishes to drag Bouvard and Pécuchet to prison.

Barberou interposes, and Marescot, the doctor, and the count likewise

interpose with insolent pity.

Explain the order for the arrest. The sub-prefect, on receiving

Foureau's letter, has despatched an order to take them into custody, in

order to frighten them, together with a letter to Marescot and Faverges,

saying that they might be let alone if they exhibited repentance.

Vaucorbeil seeks likewise to defend them.

"'Tis rather to a madhouse that they ought to be sent; they are

lunatics. I'll write to the prefect."

Everything is settled. Bouvard will make an allowance for Mélie.

The custody of the children cannot be left to them. They refuse to give

them up; but as they have not adopted the orphans according to the forms

of law, the mayor takes them back.

They display a revolting insensibility. Bouvard and Pécuchet shed tears

at it.

M. and Madame Dumouchel go away.

* * * * *

So everything has gone to pieces in their hands.

They no longer have any interest in life.

A good idea cherished secretly by each of them. They conceal it from

each other. From time to time they smile when it comes into their heads;

then at last communicate it to each other:

_To copy as in former times._

Designing of a bureau with a double desk. (For this purpose they seek

the services of a joiner. Gorju, who has heard about their invention,

proposes to make it. Recall the trunk incident.)

Purchase of books, writing materials, sandaracs, erasers, etc.

They sit down to write.

THE DANCE OF DEATH

(_1838_)

"Many words for few things!"

"Death ends all; judgment comes to all."

[This work may be called a prose poem. It is impregnated with the

spirit of romanticism, which at the time of writing had a temporary

but powerful hold on the mind of Gustave Flaubert.]

DEATH SPEAKS.

[Illustration: A]At night, in winter, when the snowflakes fall slowly

from heaven like great white tears, I raise my voice; its resonance

thrills the cypress trees and makes them bud anew.

I pause an instant in my swift course over earth; throw myself down

among cold tombs; and, while dark-plumaged birds rise suddenly in terror

from my side, while the dead slumber peacefully, while cypress branches

droop low o'er my head, while all around me weeps or lies in deep

repose, my burning eyes rest on the great white clouds, gigantic

winding-sheets, unrolling their slow length across the face of heaven.

How many nights, and years, and ages have I journeyed thus! A witness of

the universal birth and of a like decay! Innumerable are the

generations I have garnered with my scythe. Like God, I am eternal! The

nurse of Earth, I cradle it each night upon a bed both soft and warm.

The same recurring feasts; the same unending toil! Each morning I

depart, each evening I return, bearing within my mantle's ample folds

all that my scythe has gathered. And then I scatter them to the four

winds of Heaven!

* * * * *

When high the billows run, when the heavens weep, and shrieking winds

lash ocean into madness, then in the turmoil and the tumult do I fling

myself upon the surging waves, and lo! the tempest softly cradles me, as

in her hammock sways a queen. The foaming waters cool my weary feet,

burning from bathing in the falling tears of countless generations that

have clung to them in vain endeavour to arrest my steps.

Then, when the storm has ceased, after its roar has calmed me like a

lullaby, I bow my head: the hurricane, raging in fury but a moment

earlier dies instantly. No longer does it live, but neither do the men,

the ships, the navies that lately sailed upon the bosom of the waters.

'Mid all that I have seen and known,--peoples and thrones, loves,

glories, sorrows, virtues--what have I ever loved? Nothing--except the

mantling shroud that covers me!

* * * * *

My horse! ah, yes! my horse! I love thee too! How thou rushest o'er the

world! thy hoofs of steel resounding on the heads bruised by thy

speeding feet.

Thy tail is straight and crisp, thine eyes dart flames, the mane upon

thy neck flies in the wind, as on we dash upon our maddened course.

Never art thou weary! Never do we rest! Never do we sleep! Thy neighing

portends war; thy smoking nostrils spread a pestilence that, mist-like,

hovers over earth. Where'er my arrows fly, thou overturnest pyramids and

empires, trampling crowns beneath thy hoofs! All men respect thee; nay,

adore thee! To invoke thy favour, popes offer thee their triple crowns,

and kings their sceptres; peoples, their secret sorrows; poets, their

renown. All cringe and kneel before thee, yet thou rushest on over their

prostrate forms.

Ah, noble steed! Sole gift from heaven! Thy tendons are of iron, thy

head is of bronze. Thou canst pursue thy course for centuries as swiftly

as if borne up by eagle's wings; and when, once in a thousand years,

resistless hunger comes, thy food is human flesh, thy drink, men's

tears. My steed! I love thee as Pale Death alone can love!

* * * * *

Ah! I have lived so long! How many things I know! How many mysteries of

the universe are shut within my breast!

Sometimes, after I have hurled a myriad of darts, and, after coursing

o'er the world on my pale horse, have gathered many lives, a weariness

assails me, and I long to rest.

But on my work must go; my path I must pursue; it leads through infinite

space and all the worlds. I sweep away men's plans together with their

triumphs, their loves together with their crimes, their very all.

I rend my winding-sheet; a frightful craving tortures me incessantly, as

if some serpent stung continually within.

I throw a backward glance, and see the smoke of fiery ruins left behind;

the darkness of the night; the agony of the world. I see the graves that

are the work of these, my hands; I see the background of the past--'tis

nothingness! My weary body, heavy head, and tired feet, sink, seeking

rest. My eyes turn towards a glowing horizon, boundless, immense,

seeming to grow increasingly in height and depth. I shall devour it, as

I have devoured all else.

When, O God! shall I sleep in my turn? When wilt Thou cease creating?

When may I, digging my own grave, stretch myself out within my tomb,

and, swinging thus upon the world, list the last breath, the death-gasp,

of expiring nature?

When that time comes, away my darts and shroud I'll hurl. Then shall I

free my horse, and he shall graze upon the grass that grows upon the

Pyramids, sleep in the palaces of emperors, drink the last drop of water

from the sea, and snuff the odour of the last slow drop of blood! By

day, by night, through the countless ages, he shall roam through fields

eternal as the fancy takes him; shall leap with one great bound from

Atlas to the Himalayas; shall course, in his insolent pride, from heaven

to earth; disport himself by caracoling in the dust of crumbled empires;

shall speed across the beds of dried-up oceans; shall bound o'er ruins

of enormous cities; inhale the void with swelling chest, and roll and

stretch at ease.

Then haply, faithful one, weary as I, thou finally shalt seek some

precipice from which to cast thyself; shalt halt, panting before the

mysterious ocean of infinity; and then, with foaming mouth, dilated

nostrils, and extended neck turned towards the horizon, thou shalt, as

I, pray for eternal sleep; for repose for thy

[Illustration]

fiery feet; for a bed of green leaves, whereon reclining thou canst

close thy burning eyes forever. There, waiting motionless upon the

brink, thou shalt desire a power stronger than thyself to kill thee at a

single blow--shalt pray for union with the dying storm, the faded

flower, the shrunken corpse. Thou shalt seek sleep, because eternal life

is torture, and the tomb is peace.

Why are we here? What hurricane has hurled us into this abyss? What

tempest soon shall bear us away towards the forgotten planets whence we

came?

Till then, my glorious steed, thou shalt run thy course; thou mayst

please thine ear with the crunching of the heads crushed under thy feet.

Thy course is long, but courage! Long time hast thou carried me: but

longer time still must elapse, and yet we shall not age.

Stars may be quenched, the mountains crumble, the earth finally wear

away its diamond axis; but we two, we alone are immortal, for the

impalpable lives forever!

But to-day thou canst lie at my feet, and polish thy teeth against the

moss-grown tombs, for Satan has abandoned me, and a power unknown

compels me to obey his will. Lo! the dead seek to rise from their

graves.

* * * * *

Satan, I love thee! Thou alone canst comprehend my joys and my

deliriums. But, more fortunate than I, thou wilt some day, when earth

shall be no more, recline and sleep within the realms of space.

But I, who have lived so long, have worked so ceaselessly, with only

virtuous loves and solemn thoughts,--I must endure immortality. Man has

his tomb, and glory its oblivion; the day dies into night, but I--!

And I am doomed to lasting solitude upon my way, strewn with the bones

of men and marked by ruins. Angels have fellow-angels; demons their

companions of darkness; but I hear only sounds of a clanking scythe, my

whistling arrows, and my speeding horse. Always the echo of the surging

billows that sweep over and engulf mankind!

SATAN.

Dost thou complain,--thou, the most fortunate creature under heaven? The

only, splendid, great, unchangeable, eternal one--like God, who is the

only Being that equals thee! Dost thou repine, who some day in thy turn

shalt disappear forever, after thou hast crushed the universe beneath

thy horse's feet?

When God's work of creating has ceased; when the heavens have

disappeared and the stars are quenched; when spirits rise from their

retreats and wander in the depths with sighs and groans; then, what

unpicturable delight for thee! Then shalt thou sit on the eternal

thrones of heaven and of hell--shalt overthrow the planets, stars, and

worlds--shalt loose thy steed in fields of emeralds and diamonds--shalt

make his litter of the wings torn from the angels,--shalt cover him with

the robe of righteousness! Thy saddle shall be broidered with the stars

of the empyrean,--and then thou wilt destroy it! After thou hast

annihilated everything,--when naught remains but empty space,--thy

coffin shattered and thine arrows broken, then make thyself a crown of

stone from heaven's highest mount, and cast thyself into the abyss of

oblivion. Thy fall may last a million æons, but thou shalt die at last.

Because the world must end; all, all must die,--except Satan! Immortal

more than God! I live to bring chaos into other worlds!

DEATH.

But thou hast not, as I, this vista of eternal nothingness before thee;

thou dost not suffer with this death-like cold, as I.

SATAN.

Nay, but I quiver under fierce and unrelaxing heats of molten lava,

which burn the doomed and which e'en I cannot escape.

For thou, at least, hast only to destroy. But I bring birth and I give

life. I direct empires and govern the affairs of States and of hearts.

I must be everywhere. The precious metals flow, the diamonds glitter,

and men's names resound at my command. I whisper in the ears of women,

of poets, and of statesmen, words of love, of glory, of ambition. With

Messalina and Nero, at Paris and at Babylon, within the self-same moment

do I dwell. Let a new island be discovered, I fly to it ere man can set

foot there; though it be but a rock encircled by the sea, I am there in

advance of men who will dispute for its possession. I lounge, at the

same instant, on a courtesan's couch and on the perfumed beds of

emperors. Hatred and envy, pride and wrath, pour from my lips in

simultaneous utterance. By night and day I work. While men are burning

Christians, I luxuriate voluptuously in baths perfumed with roses; I

race in chariots; yield to deep despair; or boast aloud in pride.

At times I have believed that I embodied the whole world, and all that I

have seen took place, in verity, within my being.

Sometimes I weary, lose my reason, and indulge in such mad follies that

the most worthless of my minions ridicule me while they pity me.

No creature cares for me; nowhere am I loved,--neither in heaven, of

which I am a son, nor yet in hell, where I am lord, nor upon earth,

where men deem me a god. Naught do I see but paroxysms of rage, rivers

of blood, or maddened frenzy. Ne'er shall my eyelids close in slumber,

never my spirit find repose, whilst thou, at least, canst rest thy head

upon the cool, green freshness of the grave. Yea, I must ever dwell amid

the glare of palaces, must listen to the curses of the starving, or

inhale the stench of crimes that cry aloud to heaven.

God, whom I hate, has punished me indeed! But my soul is greater even

than His wrath; in one deep sigh I could the whole world draw into my

breast, where it would burn eternally, even as I.

When, Lord, shall thy great trumpet sound? Then a great harmony shall

hover over sea and hill. Ah! would that I could suffer with humanity;

their cries and sobs should drown the sound of mine!

[_Innumerable skeletons, riding in chariots, advance at a rapid pace,

with cries of joy and triumph. They drag broken branches and crowns of

laurel, from which the dried and yellow leaves fall continually in the

wind and the dust._]

Lo, a triumphal throng from Rome, the Eternal City! Her Coliseum and her

Capitol are now two grains of sand that served once as a pedestal; but

Death has swung his scythe: the monuments have fallen. Behold! At their

head comes Nero, pride of my heart, the greatest poet earth has known!

[_Nero advances in a chariot drawn by twelve skeleton horses. With the

sceptre in his hand, he strikes the bony backs of his steeds. He stands

erect, his shroud flapping behind him in billowy folds. He turns, as if

upon a race-course; his eyes are flaming and he cries loudly_:]

NERO.

Quick! Quick! And faster still, until your feet dash fire from the

flinty stones and your nostrils fleck your breasts with foam. What! do

not the wheels smoke yet? Hear ye the fanfares, whose sound reached even

to Ostia; the clapping of the hands, the cries of joy? See how the

populace shower saffron on my head! See how my pathway is already damp

with sprayed perfume! My chariot whirls on; the pace is swifter than the

wind as I shake the golden reins! Faster and faster! The dust clouds

rise; my mantle floats upon the breeze, which in my ears sings "Triumph!

triumph!" Faster and faster! Hearken to the shouts of joy, list to the

stamping feet and the plaudits of the multitude. Jupiter himself looks

down on us from heaven. Faster! yea, faster still!

[_Nero's chariot now seems to be drawn by demons; a black cloud of dust

and smoke envelops him; in his erratic course he crashes into tombs,

and the re-awakened corpses are crushed under the wheels of the chariot,

which now turns, comes forward, and stops._]

NERO.

Now let six hundred of my women dance the Grecian Dances silently before

me, the while I lave myself with roses in a bath of porphyry. Then let

them circle me, with interlacing arms, that I may see on all sides

alabaster forms in graceful evolution, swaying like tall reeds bending

over an amorous pool.

And I will give the empire and the sea, the Senate, and Olympus, the

Capitol, to her who shall embrace me the most ardently; to her whose

heart shall throb beneath my own; to her who shall enmesh me in her

flowing hair, smile on me sweetest, and enfold me in the warmest clasp;

to her who soothing me with songs of love shall waken me to joy and

heights of rapture!

Rome shall be still this night; no barque shall cleave the waters of the

Tiber, since 'tis my wish to see the mirrored moon on its untroubled

face and hear the voice of woman floating over it. Let perfumed breezes

pass through all my draperies! Ah, I would die, voluptuously

intoxicated.

Then, while I eat of some rare meat, that only I may taste, let some one

sing, while damsels, lightly draped, serve me from plates of gold and

watch my rest. One slave shall cut her sister's throat, because it is my

pleasure--a favourite with the gods--to mingle the perfume of blood with

that of food, and cries of victims soothe my nerves.

This night I shall burn Rome. The flames shall light up heaven, and

Tiber shall roll in waves of fire!

Then, I shall build of aloes wood a stage to float upon the Italian sea,

and the Roman populace shall throng thereto chanting my praise. Its

draperies shall be of purple, and on it I shall have a bed of eagles'

plumage. There I shall sit, and at my side shall be the loveliest woman

in the empire, while all the universe applauds the achievements of a

god! And though the tempest roar around me, its rage shall be

extinguished 'neath my feet, and sounds of music shall o'ercome the

clamor of the waves!

* * * * *

What didst thou say? Vindex revolts, my legions fly, my women flee in

terror? Silence and tears alone remain, and I hear naught but the

rolling of thunder. Must I die, now?

DEATH.

Instantly!

NERO.

Must I give up my days of feasting and delight, my spectacles, my

triumphs, my chariots and the applause of multitudes?

DEATH.

All! All!

SATAN.

Haste, Master of the World! One comes--One who will put thee to the

sword. An emperor knows how to die!

NERO.

Die! I have scarce begun to live! Oh, what great deeds I should

accomplish--deeds that should make Olympus tremble! I would fill up the

bed of hoary ocean and speed across it in a triumphal car. I would still

live--would see the sun once more, the Tiber, the Campagna, the Circus

on the golden sands. Ah! let me live!

DEATH.

I will give thee a mantle for the tomb, and an eternal bed that shall be

softer and more peaceful than the Imperial couch.

NERO.

Yet, I am loth to die.

DEATH.

Die, then!

[_He gathers up the shroud, lying beside him on the ground, and bears

away Nero, wrapped in its folds._]

RABELAIS[B]

[B] The manuscript of this essay, unlike all other early manuscripts

of Gustave Flaubert, bears no date. It belongs to the earliest of his

writing, a time when there was a far from unanimous opinion among the

literary _cognoscenti_ regarding the work of Rabelais.

[Illustration: N]No name in literature has been more generally cited

than that of Rabelais; and never, perhaps, has one been cited with so

much ignorance and injustice. Thus, to some minds he is merely a

drunken, cynical old monk, with a mind disordered and fantastic, as

obscene as it is ingenious, dangerous in its ideas and revolting in

their expression. To others he is a practical philosopher, gentle and

moderate; sceptical, certainly, but, after all, an honest man of

reputable life. He has been alternately loved and despised,

misunderstood and rehabilitated; and ever since his prodigious genius

first launched at the world his biting and all-embracing satire, in the

form of the colossal mocking glee of giants, creatures of his

imagination, each century has puzzled over his meaning, and has

interpreted in a thousand fashions this long enigma, apparently so

trivial, gross and merry, but in reality profound and true.

Rabelais' work is a historical achievement, in itself so important that

it belongs to and illumines the thought of each age. Thus, at the

beginning of the sixteenth century, when first given to the world, it

was in reality an open revolt, a moral pamphlet. It had the importance

of actuality and the controlling power of a revolution. Rabelais may be

regarded as a Luther in his own way. His sphere was that of laughter,

but his power over men was such that with titanic mockery he demolished

more of evil than the good man of Wittenberg, with all his anger. He

managed everything so well--wielded so cleverly the sharp chisel of

satire--that his laughter became a terror. His work is the embodiment of

the grotesque; it is as eternal as the world.

Rabelais was the father of the frank and naïve literature of the

seventeenth century--of Molière and La Fontaine,--all were immortals,

geniuses, in spirit the most essentially French of Gallic writers. All

three regarded poor human nature with a smile at once good-natured and

cynical; all were frank, free and easy in their language, men in every

sense of the word: careless of philosophers, of sects, of religions,

they were of the religion of mankind itself, and well they understood

it. They turned it over, analysed and dissected it; one in a strange

story full of gross obscenities, bursting with laughter and blasphemy;

the second, on the stage, in deftly constructed dialogue, full of truth

and wisdom and a naïveté almost sublime--more of a philosopher in the

simple laughter of his Mascarille, in the good sense of Philinte, or in

the bilious spleen of Alceste, than any other philosopher that ever

lived; and the third, in fables for children with morals for men, in

verses full of good-nature and kindly humour, in words and phrases,

wherein rests something of sublimity; in crystalline sonnets, in all the

poetic gems that deck his name with splendid ornaments.

But Rabelais is to-day a subject of serious study, the favourite author

of those rare minds that rise superior to the ordinary limitations of

intelligence. Besides those men whose names we cite, La Bruyère studied

and appreciated his work with the utmost impartiality. The great

romancer was not sufficiently correct to please the scrupulous taste of

Boileau, or to accord with the reserve and purity of Racine. That

prudish age, governed by Madame de Maintenon, so well typified in the

flat and angular garden at Versailles, was ashamed of literature at once

so frank and open, nude and picturesque. This giant made them fear. They

seemed instinctively to feel that they were placed between two terrible

epochs: the sixteenth century, which produced a Luther and a Rabelais,

and the Revolution, which was to give a Mirabeau, a Robespierre. First

the demolishers of faith, then the demolishers of life: two abysses,

'twixt which they stood firm in the adoration of themselves!

In the eighteenth century things were still worse. Philosophers then

were of a high moral tone, and would have none of Rabelais. The poor

curate of Meudon would have found himself much out of place in the

salons of the witty and beautiful _marquises_, or in the intellectual

society of Madame du Deffand or Madame Geoffrin. Never would they have

comprehended the flashing darts of wit, the bubbling spirits, the

whirlwind, the poetic mind, throbbing with adventures, inventions,

travel, and extravagances. The petty and affected tastes, the cold and

formal manners of the age, were horrified at aught that might be called

licentiousness of mind. The "Precieuses" probably preferred to have it

in their manners! Voltaire, for instance, could pardon Rabelais because

he ridiculed the Church; but of his style, of his meaning, Voltaire had

scarce an idea, although he claimed to have a key to the great work,

which he summed up in vicious epigram: "A mass of the grossest refuse

ever vomited by a drunken monk."

It is quite natural that this should have been his opinion. The glory

and value of Rabelais, as in the case of all great men, all illustrious

names, have long been vigorously disputed. His genius is unique,

exceptional; its product stands alone among the histories of the

literatures of the world. Where is his rival to be found?

To go back to antiquity, shall we cite Petronius or Apuleius, with their

studied and premeditated art, their classic style, their scholarly

conceptions?

Passing to the Middle Ages, shall we compare the epics of the twelfth

century, the comic and the morality plays? No, certainly not; and

although much of the comic material in the work of Rabelais is

characteristic of the grotesque humour and manners of the Middle Ages,

we do not find its predecessor in any literary document.

Coming down to modern times, his closest imitator, Béroald of Verville,

author of _L'Art de Parvenir_, is so far removed from his model in style

and power that it is scarcely worth while to make a comparison. Sterne

attempted to reproduce the style of Rabelais, but his affectation and

over-refined sensibility destroyed the parallel.

No, Rabelais is unique because he himself expresses the traits and

characteristics of an entire century. His work possesses the highest

significance in literature, politics, morals and religion. Certain

geniuses appear from time to time, to create new literatures, or to

resuscitate old ones; they deliver their message to the world, express

the sentiment of their own generation, and we hear from them no more.

Homer sang the glories of the martial life, of the valiant and warlike

youth of the world, the vernal season when the trees put forth new

sprouts. In Virgil's day civilisation was already old; we find him full

of tears, of shadows, sentiment and delicacy. Dante is sombre and

radiant at the same time; he was the Christian poet, the bard of death

and of hell, full of melancholy and of hope also. In olden times, if

satiety overtook a people, if doubt entered into all hearts, if all

beautiful dreams, all illusions, all Utopian yearnings fell, one by one,

destroyed by stern realities, by science, reason, and analysis, what did

the poet do? He retired within himself; he had sublime flights of pride

and enthusiasm, and moments of poignant despair. He sang the agonies of

the heart and the vagaries of fancy. Then, all the griefs that compassed

him, the sobs that rang in his ears, the maledictions that he heard on

every side, resounded in his soul--which God had made great, responsive,

all-embracing--and issued thence through the voice of genius, to mark

forever in history an epoch in a nation's life, to record its sorrows,

and carve indelibly the names of its unfortunates. In our own day Lord

Byron has done this. For this reason, the true poet is more accurate

than the historian, and indeed most poets are more strictly truthful

than historians. Great writers, then, may be compared, in the realms of

thought, to the capitals of kingdoms. They absorb the brains of every

province and every individuality; mingling those qualities of each that

are distinctively personal and original, they amalgamate them, arrange

them, and after a time the result is seen in the form of art.

Rabelais was born in 1483, the year that Louis XI. died. Luther had just

become known. The king had overthrown the ancient feudalism; the monks

were about to attack the Papacy: this situation describes the history of

the Middle Ages--a period divided between the wars of Nations and of the

Church. But the people, weary of both, would have no more of either.

They realised that the men of arms devoured their substance and ruined

them; they knew the priests made use of them for their own selfish

purposes, besides deceiving them. For some time the people contented

themselves with inscribing satires and scurrilities on the stones of the

cathedrals, with making songs against the seigneurs, or publishing,

broadcast, biting criticisms of the ruling power or of the nobility, as

in the _Romance of the Rose_. But something more was wanted: a revolt, a

reform. Symbols were old, and so were mystery plays and poems; and there

was a general feeling that an entirely new form of attack was desirable.

Science was needed, even in poetry and philosophy.

In 1473, a caricature representing the Church, with the body of a woman,

the legs of a chicken, the claws of a vulture, and the tail of a

serpent, was circulated throughout Europe. It was the epoch of Comines,

of Machiavelli, of Arétin. The Papacy had lately had Alexander VI.; now

it had Leo X., who was no better. An intellectual orgy had set in,

destined to be long, and to end with blood. During the eighteenth

century this was repeated, and the termination was the same.

In the chaotic conditions belonging to this epoch lived Rabelais. We are

not surprised that, in the midst of this society, corrupt from its

debaucheries and tottering on its foundations, and being witness to such

ruin and devastation, the genius of this wonderful man prompted him to

reveal, by means of withering sarcasm, the frightful past of the Middle

Ages, the effects of which were still felt in his own century, which

looked back upon that past with horror.

In my opinion, those who have claimed to possess a key to Rabelais, to

be able to understand his allegories, and to translate each jest into

its real significance, do not understand him in the least. His satire is

general and universal, not at all personal or local. A careful reading

of his work should prove the fallacy of such pretensions.

Shall I cite all that was done in this respect in the sixteenth century,

and tell of all the abuse poured by that century upon the Middle Ages,

of which it was the outcome? For instance, without saying anything of

Ariosto, are not Falstaff, Sancho Panza, and Gargantua a grotesque

trilogy forming a bitter satire on the old society?

Falstaff belongs wholly to England; he is John Bull bloated with beer

and pork; fat, sensual, running away from the dead, eternally drawing

from his pocket a flask of old Spanish wine. He possesses none of the

terrible grotesqueness of Iago, or of the deliberate immorality of

Schiller's Hassan, the Moor. His greatest passion was self-love; he

carried it to the highest degree; it was even sublime. He was egotism

personified, with a certain facility in analysis and a strain of

ridicule, by which he managed to turn everything to his own advantage.

As for peaceful Sancho Panza, mounted on his lazy, tawny ass, snoring

all night and sleeping all day, a poltroon, not able to understand the

meaning of heroism, full of proverbs, the prosaic man _par

excellence_,--is not his base blood the crying reason why he endeavours

with all his power to stop Don Quixote from tilting at the windmills,

which the worthy knight takes for giants? The man of gentle birth

attacks them, nevertheless, but he breaks his arm and wounds his head.

His helmet is a barber's basin, his horse, Rosinante, and a labourer's

donkey brays at the sight of his coat-of-arms.

Placed between these two figures, that of Gargantua is vaguer, less

precise. His characterisation is ampler, freer, and grander. Gargantua

is less gluttonous, less sensual than Falstaff, and not so lazy as

Sancho Panza; but he is a greater drinker, a heartier laugher, and makes

a louder clamour. He is terrible and monstrous in his gaiety.

One more reflection: the satire of Rabelais does not apply to his own

day only. He denounces, for all time, all abuses, crimes, and everything

that is ridiculous. Perhaps he was able to foresee a better state of the

body politic and a society whose moral laws should be purified. Existing

conditions aroused his pity, and, to employ a trivial expression, all

the world was a farce. And he made himself a part of the farce.

Since his time, what has been done? Everything has changed. Reform has

come, with independence of thought. We have had the Revolution. We

possess material independence. And what besides all this?

Thousands of questions have been discussed,--sciences, arts,

philosophies, theories,--how many questions even during the last twenty

years! What a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas! Where will they lead us?

Let us see. Where are we? Are we in the twilight or in full dawn? We

have no more Christianity. What have we? I ask. Railways, factories,

chemists, mathematicians. To be sure, our bodies are better off, we

suffer less in the flesh, but the heart still bleeds! Do you not feel

the perturbation of your soul, although its outward covering seems calm

and happy? It is plunged in the abyss of universal scepticism; it is

overcome by that deadly ennui that seizes upon our race even in the

cradle. Meanwhile, politicians babble, poets have scarcely time to rhyme

their fancies and scribble them hastily on ephemeral sheets of paper;

and the suicidal bullet is heard in every garret and every palace where

dwell misery, pride, or satiety!

Material questions have been settled. But others--have they also been

solved? Answer me that! And the longer you delay in filling this yawning

chasm in the soul of mankind, the more I mock at your efforts to be

happy, and laugh at your miserable sciences, that are worth no more than

a blade of grass.

Now is the time for another genius like Rabelais to arise. Let him be

without anger, without hatred, without grief. What could he laugh at?

Not at kings--there are no more; nor at God, because although we may

have lost our faith, yet a certain fear remains; nor at the Jesuits, for

they are an old story.

What could he laugh at, then? The material world has improved, or at

least it is on the road to improvement.

But the other? He would have fine sport with that. And if such a poet

could conceal his tears and laugh instead, I assure you his book would

be the most terrible and the most sublime that ever has been written!

Preface to the Last Songs

(_POSTHUMOUS POEMS_)

OF

LOUIS BOUILHET.

[Illustration: I]It would perhaps make criticism easier, if, before

giving our opinion, we should make known our preferences. To omit this

preliminary distinction is a great injustice, as every book contains a

peculiarity pertaining to the writer himself, which, independently of

the execution, will charm or irritate us according to our preferences.

We are never completely charmed unless a book appeals to our feelings

and our intellect at the same time.

First, let us discuss the object of the book. "Why this novel, this

drama? Of what use is it? etc." Instead of following the author's idea,

instead of pointing out to him where he failed of his aim, and how he

should have gone about to attain it, we bicker with him on a thousand

things outside of his subject, always declaring the contrary of what he

meant to express. If a critic's sphere extends beyond the author's

province, he should first of all look to the æsthetics and the moral.

It is impossible for me to warrant either of these concerning the poet

in questions. As for writing his life, it has been linked so closely

with mine, that I shall be brief on this subject; individual memoirs

belong only to great men. Besides, has not research been exhausted?

History will soon absorb all literature. In studying too closely what

makes up the author's atmosphere, we fail to give the originality of his

genius due consideration. In La Harpe's time, when a masterpiece

appeared, we were convinced,--thanks to certain rules!--that it was

under no obligation whatsoever; whereas now, after we have examined

everything about it, we still wish to discover its right to exist.

I have another scruple. I do not wish to betray the modesty that my

friend constantly maintained. At an epoch when insignificant mediocrity

aspired to fame, when typography was the medium of all affectations, and

the rivalry of the most insipid personalities became a public pest, he

was proud of being modest. His photograph was never displayed on the

boulevards. No article, no letter, not a single line from him, was ever

published in the papers. He did not even belong to the academy of his

province. Yet no life is more deserving of praise than his. He lived

nobly and labouriously. Though poor, he remained free. He was as strong

as a blacksmith, mild as a child, intellectual without being

paradoxical, noble without affectation; and those who knew him well will

say that I have not praised him enough.