Bouvard and Pécuchet: A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life, part 2 Page 3
[EXTRACT FROM A PLAN FOUND AMONGST GUSTAVE FLAUBERT'S PAPERS INDICATINGTHE CONCLUSION OF THE WORK.]
CONFERENCE
The inn of the Golden Cross--two wooden galleries at the sides on thefirst floor, with projecting balcony; main building at the bottom; cafeon the ground floor, dining-room, billiard-room; the doors and thewindows are open.
Crowd: people of rank, ordinary folk.
Bouvard: "The first thing to do is to demonstrate the utility of ourproject; our studies entitle us to pronounce an opinion."
* * * * *
Discourse by Pecuchet of a pedantic description.
Follies of the government and of the administration. Too much taxation.Two economies to be practised: the suppression of the religious and ofthe military budget.
He is accused of atheism.
"Quite the contrary; but there is need of a religious renovation."
Foureau appears on the scene, and insists on dissolving the meeting.
Bouvard excites a laugh at the mayor's expense by recalling his idioticbounties for owls. Objection to this.
"If it is necessary to destroy animals that injure plants, it wouldlikewise be necessary to destroy the cattle that devour the grass."
Foureau withdraws.
* * * * *
Discourse by Bouvard--in a familiar style.
Prejudices: celibacy of priests, futility of adultery, emancipation ofwoman.
"Her earrings are the symbol of her former servitude."
Studs of men.
* * * * *
Bouvard and Pecuchet are reproached with the misconduct of their pupils.Also, why did they adopt the children of a convict?
Theory of rehabilitation. They would dine with Touache.
Foureau, having returned, reads, with a view to having revenge onBouvard, a petition from him to the municipal council, in which he asksfor the establishment of a brothel at Chavignolles. (Contemptuousarguments.)
The meeting is brought to a close amid the utmost confusion.
* * * * *
On their return to their own residence, Bouvard and Pecuchet perceiveFoureau's man-servant galloping along the road from Falaise at fullspeed.
They go to bed, quite jaded, without suspecting how many plots arefermenting against them.--Explain the motives for ill-will towards themactuating the cure, the physician, the mayor, Marescot, the people,everybody.
* * * * *
Next day, at breakfast, they talk about the conference.
Pecuchet sees the future of humanity in dark colours.
The modern man is lessened, and has become a machine.
Final anarchy of the human race. (Buchner, I., II.)
Impossibility of peace. (_Id._) Savagery traceable to the excess ofindividualism and the frenzy of science.
Three hypotheses--first: pantheistic radicalism will break every tiewith the past, and an inhuman despotism will result; second: if theisticabsolutism triumphs, the liberalism with which humanity has beenpenetrated since the era of reform succumbs--all is thrown back; third:if the convulsions which have been going on since '89 continue, withoutan end between the two issues, these oscillations will carry us away bytheir own force. There will be no longer ideal, religion, morality.
The United States will have conquered the earth.
Future of literature.
Universal greed. There will be no longer anything but a debauch ofworkmen.
End of the world through the cessation of caloric.
* * * * *
Bouvard sees the future of humanity in a bright light. The modern man isprogressive.
Europe will be regenerated by Asia. The historic law that civilisationtravels from East to West--the part to be played by China--the twohumanities will at length be fused.
Future inventions: modes of travelling. Balloons. Submarine barges withglass windows, in an unchanging calm, the sea's agitation being only onthe surface. Passing travellers shall see the fishes and the landscapesin the ocean's depths. Animals tamed. All forms of cultivation.
Future of literature (opposite of industrial literature). Futuresciences.--How to regulate the force of magnetism.
Paris will become a winter-garden; fruit will be grown on theboulevards; the Seine filtered and heated; abundance of precious stonesartificially made; prodigality as to gilding; lighting of houses--lightwill be stored up, for there are bodies which possess this property,such as sugar, the flesh of certain molluscs, and the phosphorus ofBologna. People will be ordered to cover the fronts of the houses with aphosphorescent substance, and the radiations from them will illuminatethe streets.
Disappearance of evil by the disappearance of want. Philosophy will be areligion.
Communion of all peoples. Public fetes.
People will travel to the heavenly bodies; and when the earth is usedup, humanity will set up housekeeping in the stars.
* * * * *
He has hardly finished when the gendarmes make their appearance. Entryof the gendarmes.
At the sight of them the children are terror-stricken, owing to vaguerecollections.
Marcel's desolation.
Anxiety on the part of Bouvard and Pecuchet. Do they mean to arrestVictor?
The gendarmes exhibit an order to take them into custody.
It is the conference that brought it on. They are accused of having madeattempts on religion, on order, having roused people to revolt, etc.
Sudden arrival of M. and Madame Dumouchel with their baggage; they havecome to take sea-baths. Dumouchel is not changed; Madame wearsspectacles and composes fables. Their perplexity.
The mayor, knowing that the gendarmes are with Bouvard and Pecuchet,arrives, encouraged by their presence.
Gorju, seeing that authority and public opinion are against them, hasthought of profiting by it, and escorts Foureau. Assuming Bouvard to bethe richer of the pair, he accuses him of having formerly debauchedMelie.
"I? Never!"
Bouvard breaks into a loud exclamation.
"Let him at least make allowance for the child that is about to be born,for she is pregnant."
This second accusation is based on the liberties taken with her byBouvard at the cafe.
The public gradually overrun the house.
Barberou, called into the country by a matter connected with his ownbusiness, has just learned at the inn what is going on, and comes on thescene.
He believes Bouvard to be guilty, takes him aside, and makes him promiseto yield and give the allowance.
Next comes the doctor, the count, Reine, Madame Bordin, MadameMarescot, under her umbrella, and other persons of rank.
The village brats, outside the railing, scream out and fling stones intothe garden. (It is now well kept, and this makes the inhabitantsjealous.)
Foureau wishes to drag Bouvard and Pecuchet to prison.
Barberou interposes, and Marescot, the doctor, and the count likewiseinterpose with insolent pity.
Explain the order for the arrest. The sub-prefect, on receivingFoureau's letter, has despatched an order to take them into custody, inorder to frighten them, together with a letter to Marescot and Faverges,saying that they might be let alone if they exhibited repentance.
Vaucorbeil seeks likewise to defend them.
"'Tis rather to a madhouse that they ought to be sent; they arelunatics. I'll write to the prefect."
Everything is settled. Bouvard will make an allowance for Melie.
The custody of the children cannot be left to them. They refuse to givethem up; but as they have not adopted the orphans according to the formsof law, the mayor takes them back.
They display a revolting insensibility. Bouvard and Pecuchet shed tearsat it.
M. and Madame Dumouchel go away.
* * * * *
&nbs
p; So everything has gone to pieces in their hands.
They no longer have any interest in life.
A good idea cherished secretly by each of them. They conceal it fromeach other. From time to time they smile when it comes into their heads;then at last communicate it to each other:
_To copy as in former times._
Designing of a bureau with a double desk. (For this purpose they seekthe services of a joiner. Gorju, who has heard about their invention,proposes to make it. Recall the trunk incident.)
Purchase of books, writing materials, sandaracs, erasers, etc.
They sit down to write.