When they had breakfasted, they would instal themselves in the little room, one at each side of the chimney-piece, and, facing each other, book in hand, they would begin to read in silence. When the day wore apace, they would go out for a walk along the road, then, having s.n.a.t.c.hed a hurried dinner, they would resume their reading far into the night. In order to protect himself from the lamp, Bouvard wore blue spectacles, while Pecuchet kept the peak of his cap drawn over his forehead.
Germaine had not gone, and Gorju now and again came to dig in the garden; for they had yielded through indifference, forgetful of material things.
After Walter Scott, Alexandre Dumas diverted them after the fashion of a magic-lantern. His personages, active as apes, strong as bulls, gay as chaffinches, enter on the scene and talk abruptly, jump off roofs to the pavement, receive frightful wounds from which they recover, are believed to be dead, and yet reappear. There are trap-doors under the boards, antidotes, disguises; and all things get entangled, hurry along, and are finally unravelled without a minute for reflection. Love observes the proprieties, fanaticism is cheerful, and ma.s.sacres excite a smile.
Rendered hard to please by these two masters, they could not tolerate the balderdash of the _Belisaraire_, the foolery of the _Numa Pompilius_, of Marchangy, and Vicomte d"Arlincourt. The colouring of Frederic Soulie (like that of the book-lover Jacob) appeared to them insufficient; and M. Villemain scandalised them by showing at page 85 of his _Lascaris_, a Spaniard smoking a pipe--a long Arab pipe--in the middle of the fifteenth century.
Pecuchet consulted the _Biographie Universelle_, and undertook to revise Dumas from the point of view of science.
The author in _Les Deux Dianes_ makes a mistake with regard to dates.
The marriage of the Dauphin, Francis, took place on the 15th of October, 1548, and not on the 20th of May, 1549. How does he know (see _Le Page du Duc de Savoie_) that Catherine de Medicis, after her husband"s death, wished to resume the war? It is not very probable that the Duke of Anjou was crowned at night in a church, an episode which adorns _La Dame de Montsoreau_. _La Reine Margot_ especially swarms with errors. The Duke of Nevers was not absent. 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 gla.s.s of Jeanne d"Albret--Pecuchet no longer had any confidence in Dumas.
He even lost all respect for Walter Scott on account of the oversights in his _Quentin Durward_. The murder of the Archbishop of Liege is antic.i.p.ated by fifteen years. The wife of Robert de Lamarck was Jeanne d"Arschel and not Hameline de Croy. Far from being killed by a soldier, he was put to death by Maximilian; and the face of Temeraire, when his corpse was found, did not express any menace, inasmuch as the wolves had half devoured it.
None the less, Bouvard went on with Walter Scott, but ended by getting weary of the repet.i.tion of the same effects. The heroine usually lives in the country with her father, and the lover, a plundered heir, is re-established in his rights and triumphs over his rivals. There are always a mendicant philosopher, a morose n.o.bleman, pure young girls, facetious retainers, and interminable dialogues, stupid prudishness, and an utter absence of depth.
In his dislike to bric-a-brac, Bouvard took up George Sand.
He went into raptures over the beautiful adulteresses and n.o.ble lovers, would have liked to be Jacques, Simon, Lelio, and to have lived in Venice. He uttered sighs, did not know what was the matter with him, and felt himself changed.
Pecuchet, who was working up historical literature studied plays. He swallowed two _Pharamonds_, three _Clovises_, four _Charlemagnes_, several _Philip Augustuses_, a crowd of _Joan of Arcs_, many _Marquises de Pompadours_, and some _Conspiracies of Cellamare_.
Nearly all of them appeared still more stupid than the romances. For there exists for the stage a conventional history which nothing can destroy. Louis XI. will not fail to kneel before the little images in his hat; Henry IV. will be constantly jovial, Mary Stuart tearful, Richelieu cruel; in short, all the characters seem taken from a single block, from love of simplicity and regard for ignorance, so that the playwright, far from elevating, lowers, and, instead of instructing, stupefies.
As Bouvard had spoken eulogistically to him about George Sand, Pecuchet proceeded to read _Consuelo_, _Horace_, and _Mauprat_, was beguiled by the author"s vindication of the oppressed, the socialistic and republican aspect of her works, and the discussions contained in them.
According to Bouvard, however, these elements spoiled the story, and he asked for love-tales at the circulating library.
They read aloud, one after the other, _La Nouvelle Helose_, _Delphine_, _Adolphe_, and _Ourika_. But the listener"s yawns proved contagious, for the book slipped out of the reader"s hand to the floor.
They found fault with the last-mentioned works for making no reference to the environment, the period, the costume of the various personages.
The heart alone is the theme--nothing but sentiment! as if there were nothing else in the world.
They next went in for novels of the humorous order, such as the _Voyage autour de ma Chambre_, by Xavier de Maistre, and _Sous les Tilleuls_, by Alphonse Karr. In books of this description the author must interrupt the narrative in order to talk about his dog, his slippers, or his mistress.
A style so free from formality charmed them at first, then appeared stupid to them, for the author effaces his work while displaying in it his personal surroundings.
Through need of the dramatic element, they plunged into romances of adventure. The more entangled, extraordinary, and impossible the plot was, the more it interested them. They did their best to foresee the _denouement_, became very excited over it, and tired themselves out with a piece of child"s play unworthy of serious minds.
The work of Balzac amazed them like a Babylon, and at the same time like grains of dust under the microscope.
In the most commonplace things arise new aspects. They never suspected that there were such depths in modern life.
"What an observer!" exclaimed Bouvard.
"For my part I consider him chimerical," Pecuchet ended by declaring.
"He believes in the occult sciences, in monarchy, in rank; is dazzled by rascals; turns up millions for you like centimes; and middle-cla.s.s people are not with him middle-cla.s.s people at all, but giants. Why inflate what is unimportant, and waste description on silly things? He wrote one novel on chemistry, another on banking, another on printing-machines, just as one Ricard produced _The Cabman_, _The Water-Carrier_ and _The Cocoa-Nut Seller_. We should soon have books on every trade and on every province; then on every town and on the different stories of every house, and on every individual--which would be no longer literature but statistics or ethnography."
The process was of little consequence in Bouvard"s estimation. He wanted to get information--to acquire a deeper knowledge of human nature. He read Paul de k.o.c.k again, and ran through the _Old Hermits of the Chaussee d"Antin_.
"Why lose one"s time with such absurdities?" said Pecuchet.
"But they might be very interesting as a series of doc.u.ments."
"Go away with your doc.u.ments! I want something to lift me up, and take me away from the miseries of this world."
And Pecuchet, craving for the ideal, led Bouvard unconsciously towards tragedy.
The far-off times in which the action takes place, the interests with which it is concerned, and the high station of its leading personages impressed them with a certain sense of grandeur.
One day Bouvard took up _Athalie_, and recited the dream so well that Pecuchet wished to attempt it in his turn. From the opening sentence his voice got lost in a sort of humming sound. It was monotonous and, though strong, indistinct.
Bouvard, full of experience, advised him, in order to render it well-modulated, to roll it out from the lowest tone to the highest, and to draw it back by making use of an ascending and descending scale; and he himself went through this exercise every morning in bed, according to the precept of the Greeks. Pecuchet, at the time mentioned, worked in the same fashion: each had his door closed, and they went on bawling separately.
The features that pleased them in tragedy were the emphasis, the political declamations, and the maxims on the perversity of things.
They learned by heart the most celebrated dialogues of Racine and Voltaire, and they used to declaim them in the corridor. Bouvard, as if he were at the Theatre Francais, strutted, with his hand on Pecuchet"s shoulder, stopping at intervals; and, with rolling eyes, he would open wide his arms, and accuse the Fates. He would give forth fine bursts of grief from the _Philoctete_ of La Harpe, a nice death-rattle from _Gabrielle de Vergy_, and, when he played Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, the way in which he represented that personage gazing at his son while exclaiming, "Monster, worthy of me!" was indeed terrible. Pecuchet forgot his part in it. The ability, and not the will, was what he lacked.
On one occasion, in the _Cleopatre_ of Marmontel, he fancied that he could reproduce the hissing of the asp, just as the automaton invented for the purpose by Vaucanson might have done it. The abortive effort made them laugh all the evening. The tragedy sank in their estimation.
Bouvard was the first to grow tired of it, and, dealing frankly with the subject, demonstrated how artificial and limping it was, the silliness of its incidents, and the absurdity of the disclosures made to confidants.
They then went in for comedy, which is the school for fine shading.
Every sentence must be dislocated, every word must be underlined, and every syllable must be weighed. Pecuchet could not manage it, and got quite stranded in _Celimene_. Moreover, he thought the lovers very cold, the disputes a bore, and the valets intolerable--c.l.i.tandre and Sganarelle as unreal as aegistheus and Agamemnon.
There remained the serious comedy or tragedy of everyday life, where we see fathers of families afflicted, servants saving their masters, rich men offering others their fortunes, innocent seamstresses and villainous corrupters, a species which extends from Diderot to Pixerecourt. All these plays preaching about virtue disgusted them by their triviality.
The drama of 1830 fascinated them by its movement, its colouring, its youthfulness. They made scarcely any distinction between Victor Hugo, Dumas, or Bouchardy, and the diction was no longer to be pompous or fine, but lyrical, extravagant.
One day, as Bouvard was trying to make Pecuchet understand Frederic Lemaitre"s acting, Madame Bordin suddenly presented herself in a green shawl, carrying with her a volume of Pigault-Lebrun, the two gentlemen being so polite as to lend her novels now and then.
"But go on!" for she had been a minute there already, and had listened to them with pleasure.
They hoped she would excuse them. She insisted.
"Faith!" said Bouvard, "there"s nothing to prevent----"
Pecuchet, through bashfulness, remarked that he could not act unprepared and without costume.
"To do it effectively, we should need to disguise ourselves!"
And Bouvard looked about for something to put on, but found only the Greek cap, which he s.n.a.t.c.hed up.
As the corridor was not big enough, they went down to the drawing-room.
Spiders crawled along the walls, and the geological specimens that enc.u.mbered the floor had whitened with their dust the velvet of the armchairs. On the chair which had least dirt on it they spread a cover, so that Madame Bordin might sit down.
It was necessary to give her something good.