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In spite of this, they were often better than men; but at other times they were worse. In short, it was better to live without them. For his part, Pécuchet was a bachelor. "As for me, I'm a widower," said Bouvard, "and I have no children." "Perhaps you are lucky there. But, in the long run, solitude is very sad."
A science, according to Condillac, is so much the better the less need it has of them. They do nothing but summarise acquired knowledge, and they bring us back to those conceptions which are exactly the disputable ones." "Have you, like us," went on Pécuchet, "scrutinised and explored the arcana of metaphysics?" "It is true, gentlemen it is true!" Then the company broke up.
And if, in such later works as Flaubert's Bouvard et Pécuchet and the Latter-Day Pamphlets of Carlyle, only the difference between the two minds is apparent, the difference is, after all, but a difference in temperament. It is the contrast between the impassive aloofness of the artist, and the personal and intrusive vehemence of the prophet.
The notary replied: "But the language are you thinking of that?" "The language? How?" "He refers to the style," said Pécuchet. "Do you consider his works well written?" "No doubt, exceedingly interesting." He shrugged his shoulders, and she blushed at the impertinence. Madame Bordin had several times attempted to come back to her own business transaction. It was too late to conclude it.
He gave his opinion at the council before the feast of St. Bartholomew, and Henry of Navarre did not follow the procession four days after. Henry III. did not come back from Poland so quickly. Besides, how many flimsy devices! The miracle of the hawthorn, the balcony of Charles IX., the poisoned glass of Jeanne d'Albret Pécuchet no longer had any confidence in Dumas.
Pécuchet immediately went to inspect the inside of it: the sets of porcelain lay in bits. He raised his arms, while he gnashed his teeth, and cursed these two idiots; and the following day was lost owing to the waggon-driver getting tipsy: but he had not the energy to complain, the cup of bitterness being full.
The notary possessed a few of them, and derived from the fact, as it were, an artistic reputation which was prejudicial to his profession, but for which he made up by the serious side of his character. When he learned that Bouvard and Pécuchet had got the soup-tureen, he came to propose to them an exchange. Pécuchet would not consent to this.
"Why admit," objected Bouvard, "that fables are more true than the truths of historians?" Pécuchet tried to explain myths, and got lost in the Scienza Nuova. "Will you deny the design of Providence?" "I don't know it!" said Bouvard. And they decided to refer to Dumouchel. The professor confessed that he was now at sea on the subject of history. "It is changing every day.
Pécuchet combated his obstinacy, begged of him to give way, and finally declared that he would make up the surplus himself. This was his entire fortune, coming from his mother's patrimony and his own savings. Never had he breathed a word, reserving this capital for a great occasion. The entire amount was paid up about the end of 1840, six months before his retirement.
"Really," said Bouvard, "for a few words " "But words lead to crimes, my dear sir, give me leave to say." "And yet," said Pécuchet, "what line of demarcation can you lay down between innocent and guilty phrases? The thing that just now is prohibited may be subsequently applauded." And he censured the harshness with which the insurgents had been treated.
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