Bouvard and Pécuchet, part 2

ave Flaubert, they are simply recollect

and me; to relate the story of this life is to make him better known, more loved and

, was nine years older than Gustave, and the two other little ones were dead. Then came Gusta

ed from each other. Gustave repeated everything he learned to his sister; she was his pupil, and one of his greatest pleasures was initiating her into literary compos

e familiarity permitted with a child was followed in her case by a respect and worship for her master. She was "full of him," recalling his least action, his least word. When she s

retty, smiling valley which extends from Pont-Saint-Pierre to the great market-town of Lyons-la-Forêt. The coast of the "Two Lovers" protected its entrance; here and there

skilful story-teller, this simple girl of the people, and endowed with a naturally fine and agreeabl

ould join together all the legends she had heard around the fire with those she had read, and,

pid appearance. When he was six years old an old domestic, called Pierre, used to amuse himself with that innocence; he would say to little Gustave, if he teased for anything, "Go now and look at the end of the garden, or in the kitchen and see

oline, beside Gustave, learned by degrees that she could not keep up with him, and he, being forced to understand this from signs of

y door of the H?tel-Dieu, and run across to Father Mignot's knee, upon a signal from him. And it was not the good woman's strawberries that tempted him, but the stories the old man told him. He knew a great many pretty tales of

sed my uncle; he would never let it be taken from him. And

ng to read, the last irrefutable argument with him was:

could not follow him there. Gustave put himself resolutely to work, and at the end of

himself to understand his professors, punishments abounded, and the first prize escaped him, except in history

region of his mind accessible to himself alone, and not yet did he show them in his exterior life. He had a great memory, forgetting nothing, neither benevolences nor vexation of which he was t

of drums irritated him, and that of filing the pupils in rank when they passed from one class to another exasperated him. Constraint in his movements was a punishment, and his walk with the procession every Thursday was never a pleasur

outings on Thursdays and Sundays. Then he saw his beloved

pushed to one end of the room, served as a stage, which they mounted by means of a crock from the garden. Caroline had charge of the decorations and costumes. His mother's wardrobe was plundered for old shawls, which made excellent peplums. He wrote to one of his principal actors, Ernest Chevalier: "Victory! victory! victory! victory! You will come, and Amédée, Edmond, Madame Chevalier, Mamm

he two mothers, who had known each other from nine years of age at the pension. Alfred Le Poittevin had a very great influence upon my uncle in his youth, contributing to his liter

ts and upon the moral and intel

ompetition and by this success was received as a doctor free of further cost. Scarcely had he passed his examinations when he was sent from Dupuytren, where he was house physician, to Rouen to Doctor Laumonier, who was then surgeon of the hospital. This sojourn was supposed to be only temporary, to restore his health, which had become enfeebled from overwork and a

young girl, a child of thirteen years, a goddaughter of Madame Laumonier,

her letters, "about an unequal marriage between Charlotte Cambremer de Croixmare and Jean-Baptiste Francois-Prosper Fleuriot, a doctor without reputation." At thirty years of age Mademoiselle de Croixmare had

s soon ceased. Doctor Fleuriot, seeing that he was about to die, gave his daughter in charge of two old ladies of Saint-Cyr who had a little school at Honfleur. These ladies promised to keep her until her marriage, but they, too, soon disappeared. Then her tutor, Monsieur Thouret, sent the young

r from the dangers of such surroundings. Besides, my grandfather, more far-seeing than she could be, wished her to remain in the boarding-school until she was married. She was eighteen and he twenty-seven at the

ne another, where the sun could never penetrate. In my childhood my grandmother would often take me through there, and, lookin

enjoying full, strong pleasures; but his soul, aspiring to an unattainable ideal, suffered without ceasing in not finding it. This applied to the smallest things; because, as a seeker after the exquisite, he had found that the most frequently recurring sentiment was nearly always one of grief. This without doubt added to the sensibility of his nervous system, which the violent commotions of a certain mala

ificed himself. After hours passed in communion with abstract form, the mystic became man again, was a bon vivant, laughed with a frank laugh, put a charming gaiety into the reci

an artist. His mother transmitted to him his impressionability and that almost feminine tenderness which often made his great heart overflow and his eyes grow moist at the sight of a child. His taste for travel, he often said, came to him from one of his ancestors who took part in the conquest of Canada. H

him as surgeon-in-chief of the Hospital. It was in

f chasteness and something of the accepted modern types. It was situated at the end of Rue de Crosne, and as one came from the centre of the town he found himself face t

her side of the pavilion was a garden forming an angle with the street, bordered at the left by a wall covered with ivy and hemmed in at the right by the hospital buildings. These are high grey walls, punct

ients sat on stone seats, when the weather was pleasant. From time to time the white wing of a great bonnet of one of the sisters could be seen rapidly crossi

bert. He ever retained an exquisite compassion for all human suffering, and also a high

This man, so preoccupied with beauty in style and giving form so high a place, even the highest, paid little attention to the beauty that surrounded h

o him. I have large boxes full of them. Did he think there would be as much interest taken in them as there was later in his own? Did he foresee that great interest in his co

as he said. His energy of will for all that concerned his art was prodigious, and his patience was tireless. Some years before his death, he would amuse himself by saying: "I am the la

topping suddenly, his arms crossed, raising his head and remaining for some mo

tenderness could add to the happiness of youth. He had bought a house in the country, at Deville near Rouen, which he disposed of one year before h

made in a post-chaise, a veritable journey of the good old times. The thought of them brought many an amusing remembrance to

. The oldest daughters, Gertrude and Henrietta, soon became the intimate friends of my uncle and my mother.

. When I spoke to him of fame, or of influence, as desirable things that I esteemed, he listened, smiled, and seemed superbly indifferent. He admired what was beautiful in nature, art and literature and lived for that, as he said, without any thought of the personal. He cared neither for glory nor for gain. Was it not enough that a thing was true and beautiful? His great joy was in finding something that he judged worthy of admiration. The charm

Barbette, a little humpback always crying out to her dolls. Then there was Doctor Billard, and Father Couillère, mayor of the commune, at whose house they had repasts that lasted for six hours. He recalled these years in writing A Simpl

is childhood, he found satisfaction, and that pleasure has brought from his pen his most touching pages, those perhaps where he allows us to divine most clearly the man under the writer. Recall that scene where Madame Aubin and her servant are arranging the tri

be a savant and a law practitioner. To devote himself to the unique and exclusive research for beauty of literary form, seemed to him almost folly. A man of character, eminently strong, and of very active habits, he comprehended with difficulty the nervous and somewhat feminine side

his comrades seemed to him stupid, so that he scarcely ever participated in them. He would remain alone, open one of his law books, which he woul

en visited the studio; it was there he met Louise Colet. He often went to see the pretty English girls of Trouville, to the salon of the editor, Maurice Schlesinger, and to the hospita

bounds invaded him. His work, which was contrary to his taste, became into

at she was happy to keep her son near her. Paris and the Law School were abandoned. It was then that, in company with Maxime Ducamp

ich fragments have been published since his death. The Saint Antoine composed then, was not the first

e Ducamp. This time the two friends directed their steps