Bouvard and Pécuchet, part 2

wn; I remember that it extended far below my feet. He began to laugh very hard and then to imprint great kisses on my cheeks which made me cry; I felt the cold of his moustache, humid with dew, an

tened me; my uncle took me on his shoulder, and I traversed the galleries overlooking everyb

nd write, and for him was reserved history and geography. He believed it useless to study grammar, holding that it taught itself in re

years when we we

low in shape, all white, must have been built about two hundred years. It had belonged to the monks of the Abbey of Sain

one one of those remodellings in bad taste that were seen so often in the first Empire and the reign of Louis Philippe, at the beginning of the century. Above the entrance, after the fashion of b

ied the centre of the house on the ground floor, opened upon the garden by a glas

ry low ceiling, but very light, because of five windows, of which three looked upon the whole length of the garden, the other two being in the front of the hous

orning she was on the defence against the least noise; towards ten o'clock the violent ringing of a bell would be heard, and some one would go to my uncle's room; not until then did every one awake. The domestic carried him his letters and newspapers, deposited on the night table a glass of fresh water and a well-filled pipe; then he ope

d re-read some passage with which he was preoccupied. Although little complicat

ert, he would relight his pipe-a little gray pipe-get up and go into the garden, where we followed. His favourite walk was the terrace walled in and bordered on one side by old willows cut straight across like a gigantic wall. This led to a little pavilion in the style of Louis XV., whose windows looked out upon the Seine. Very often on summer evenings we would all seat ourselves here under the balcony of graceful fretwork and remain for some calm hours, chatting together; the ni

knew not. But I respected the name, those two words, as I respected everything that came from my uncle, and believed vaguely that it was a sy

he terrace, which led to a charming shady footpath; some old yew-trees came out of the rocks in queer shapes, showing their bare roots and jagged trunks; they appeared to be suspended, holding only to the crumbling wall a

e being towed to Rouen. Sometimes there would be seven, or nine. Nothing is more majestic and beautiful than the pomp of these floating houses, which suggest a far-off country. About one o'

co, also with perfumes that were wafted in through the door of his dressing-room. With a bound I would throw myself upon the great white bear-skin, which I adored, and cover his great head with kisses. My uncle, meantime, would be putting his pipe on the chimney-piece; and, selec

ry of Pelopidas and E

e it,

ly I became confused

t to you once more,"

air or upon the divan. I listened with a palpitating

aking reflections within my power, but remaining truly and profoundly observant; matur

is question, applied to such men as Cambyses, Alexander o

ese were not very proper gentleme

ld boy," as I called him, knew even the smalles

of learning in childhood." We had charts, spheres, games of patience which we could make and unmake together; then, to explain the difference between islan

my marriage. When I was ten years old, he obliged me to take notes while he was speaking, and when my mind was

asely conceived. It was not the crude detail, the raw fact that was pernicious or harmful, or likely to soil the intelligence; all that is in nature. There is nothing moral or immoral but

," he wrote me, "and do not allow yourself to begin books and then leave them for some time. When one undertakes to read a book, it should be finished at a single blow. It is the only way of seeing it as a whole and of deriving a

in the strongest manner possible. So easy in some ways, he was very rigorous on certain points; thus, he wished that the v

time, to go to his window and breathe large whiffs of air. Then we dined, and chatted together awhile, as after breakfast. At nine o'clock, or ten at the latest, he would a

until Monday morning. A part of the night was passed in reading the work of the week. What delightful hours of expansion! There w

evard du Temple, in a house belonging to M. Mourier, director of the theatre of the Délassements-Comiques. Bouilhet was presenting his first piece, Madame de Montarcy, at the Odéon that year. He had already preceded his friend, left Rouen and hi

rried, and the father of six children, had left his wife and family with the greatest eagerness to follow the son of his old master for whom he had a respect amounting to fanaticism, but joined to that the greatest forgetfulness of difference in station. One day he returned completely drunk; my uncl

the study, or before a bookcase, with a feather duster under one arm and a book in his hand; he read in a high voice, imitating his master. But these a

ccess of Madame Bovary followed by a famous lawsuit had given to my uncle a

which I took part and which had around the table Sainte-Beuve, Monsieur and Madame Sandeau, Monsieur and Madame Cornu, these last brought by Jules Duplan, the f

red there scholars, artists, and some of his intimate friends; he relished strongly this intellectual and worldly life. He went also to the Tuileries and was inv

le: Sainte-Beuve, Théophile Gautier, the two De Goncourts, Garvarni, Renan, Taine, the Marqui

rrived and we returned to t

ite of what was once Carthage was necessary to him, and he set out for Tunis. On hi

along the main walk; he would read while I sketched, and interrupting his reading, he would speak to me of what it suggested to him, or begin to recite verse, or entire pages of prose which he knew by heart. What he most often recited was Montesquieu and Chateaubriand. His memory disclosed itself equally in dates or in historic facts

tor Villemain whom he met in Egypt, and Lamber

ng him extraordinarily and disturbing his work. It was necessary for him to work at an extreme tension, and it was impossible for him to find himself in this state elsewhere than at his great round table in his study, where he was sure that nothing would distr

ged to flee from his house,-for he would not for anything in the world be under the necessity of speaking to a Prussian,-he took refuge in Rouen in a little lodging near the Havre quay where he was badly housed. This seemed to be a bereavement; my grandmother, now aged, no longer occ

ght to my uncle's heart and mind frightful anxiety and grief. The arts appeared to him dead. Why? Was it possible? Could it be that an intelligent

they had respected absolutely all that belonged to him. One thing only about the return was suffocating,-the odour of the Prussian, as the French call it, an odour of greas

, he was at my house at Neuville when, yielding to my supplications

cy continually to turn back in order to compare and analyse. Even at the age of the most ab

, while man, with his foolishness, and his conversation, was intensely interesting to him. "Foolishness," he would say, "enters my pores." And when he was reproached for not going out more, or for remaining so much in the country, he

horitative pens, the manifestation of their self-conceit or their greed, were to him so much subjects of experience that he recorded them and slipped them into his portfolio; he could not comprehend the art that sought only gain; according to him, mere mon

bout Lake Gaube and the inn near Gavarnie. Even here is the beginning of the Dictionary of Accepted Ideas by Bouvard and Pécuchet. Th