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"Well, for her sake, or rather for that of the persons that surround her, I prohibit them in my house, for the people, my dear sir " "What have the people done?" said Vaucorbeil, appearing suddenly at the door. Pécuchet, who had recognised his voice, came to mingle with the company. "I maintain," returned the count, "that it is necessary to prevent them from reading certain books."
A play is troublesome on account of the narrowness of its framework, but the novel has more freedom. In order to write one they searched among their personal recollections. Pécuchet recalled to mind one of the head-clerks in his own office, a very nasty customer, and he felt a longing to take revenge on him by means of a book.
Pécuchet, surprised by the shower, had taken refuge in the hut. Bouvard stuck to the kitchen. They saw splinters of wood, branches, and slates whirling in front of them; and the sailors' wives who, on the sea-shore ten leagues away, were gazing out at the sea, had not eyes more wistful or hearts more anxious.
Pécuchet turned away his eyes to avoid hers; and Bouvard, his gaze resting on the walls, pondered meanwhile on his projected improvements. Eight days after he came back in a towering rage. "The damned traitress!" "Who, pray?" "Madame Bordin." And he related how he had been so infatuated as to offer to make her his wife, but all had come to an end a quarter of an hour since at Marescot's office.
On the evening of the 24th of December, between ten and eleven o'clock, they sat thinking in the museum, both differently attired. Bouvard wore a blouse over his knitted waistcoat, and Pécuchet, through economy, had not left off his monk's habit for the past three months. While he was lifting up the kettle he spilled some water on the floor. "Awkward!" exclaimed Bouvard.
Pécuchet kept muttering calculations, motionless in his long blouse, a kind of child's smock-frock with sleeves; and they looked upon themselves as very serious people engaged in very useful occupations. At length they dreamed of a cream which would surpass all others.
At an elevation of fifty feet Pécuchet wished to descend; but as the sea was dashing against him in front, he set about clambering up further. At the second turning, when he beheld the empty space, terror froze him. As he approached the third, his legs were becoming weak.
But, while walking through the garden, they remarked in the middle of a flower-bed, near the gateway, the imprint of a boot-sole, and two of the sticks used as supports for the trees were broken. Evidently some one had climbed over. It was necessary to give notice of it to the rural guard. As he was not at the municipal building, Pécuchet thought of going to the grocer's shop.
The ancient teachers were inaccessible owing to the length of their works, or the difficulty of the language; but Jouffroy and Damiron initiated them into modern philosophy, and they had authors who dealt with that of the last century. Bouvard derived his arguments from Lamettrie, Locke, and Helvetius; Pécuchet from M. Cousin, Thomas Reid, and Gérando.
The water from the washing she had been doing in the kitchen was flowing to the lower end of the house. "You see," said the schoolmaster, "how the government treats us." And forthwith he began finding fault with capital as an infamous thing. It was necessary to democratise it, to enfranchise matter. "I ask for nothing better," said Pécuchet.
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