Bouvard and Pécuchet

It is an excellent habit to look at things as so many symbols.

Abstraction can provide stumbling blocks for people of strange intelligence.

On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.

Then they wondered if there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be huge, those of Mars middle-sized, those of Venus very small. Unless it is the same everywhere. There are businessmen, police up there; people trade, fight, dethrone their kings. Some shooting stars suddenly slid past, describing a course in the sky like the parabola of a monstrous rocket. ‘My Word,’ said Bouvard, ‘look at those worlds disappearing.’ Pecuchet replied: ‘If our world in its turn danced about, the citizens of the stars would be no more impressed than we are now. Ideas like that are rather humbling.’ ‘What is the point of it all?’ ‘Perhaps there isn’t a point.’ ‘Yet…’ and Pecuchet repeated the word two or three times, without finding anything more to say.

How wonderful to find in living creatures the same substance as those which make up minerals. Nevertheless they felt a sort of humiliation at the idea that their persons contained phosphorous like matches, albumen like white of egg, hydrogen gas like street lamps.

The morality of art consists, for everyone, in the side that flatters its own interests. People do not like literature.

In the end idealism annoyed Bouvard. ‘I don’t want any more of it: the famous cogito is a bore. The ideas of things are taken for the things themselves. What we barely understand is explained by means of words that we do not understand at all! Substance, extension, force, matter and soul, are all so many abstractions, figments of the imagination. As for God, it is impossible to know how he is, or even if he is! Once he was the cause of wind, thunder, revolutions. Now he is getting smaller. Besides, I don’t see what use he is.

Sometimes, in a daze, they completely dismantled the cadaver, then found themselves hard put to it to fit the pieces together again.

Ils en conclurent que la syntaxe est une fantaisie et la grammaire une illusion.

Ainsi leur rencontre avait eu l'importance d'une aventure. Ils s'étaient, tout de suite, accrochés par des fibres secrètes. D'ailleurs, comment expliquer les sympathies? Pourquoi telle particularité, telle imperfection indifférente ou odieuse dans celui-ci enchante-t-elle dans celui-là? Ce qu'on appelle le coup de foudre est vrai pour toutes les passions. Avant la fin de la semaine, ils se tutoyèrent

Quelle bassesse que de penser toujours au prolongement de son existence! La vie n'est bonne qu'à la condition d'en jouir. (ch. III)

Leur manière de vivre - qui n'était pas celle des autres - déplaisait. Ils devinrent suspects; et même inspiraient une vague terreur.

Ils firent lire à leurs élèves des historiettes tendant à inspirer l’amour de la vertu. Elles assommèrent Victor. Pour frapper son imagination, Pécuchet suspendit aux murs de sa chambre des images, exposant la vie du Bon Sujet, et celle du Mauvais Sujet. Le premier, Adolphe, embrassait sa mère, étudiait l’allemand, secourait un aveugle, et était reçu à l’Ecole Polytechnique. Le mauvais, Eugène, commençait par désobéir à son père, avait une querelle dans un café, battait son épouse, tombait ivre mort, fracturait une armoire – et un dernier tableau le représentait au bagne, où un monsieur accompagné d’un jeune garçon disait, en le montrant : Tu vois, mon fils, les dangers de l’inconduite.

aruspicy

Alors une faculté pitoyable se développa dans leur esprit, celle de voir la bêtise et de ne plus la tolérer.

E per quanto l'età in cui si è facili a commuoversi fosse trascorsa per entrambi, provavano un piacere nuovo a stare insieme , una specie di appagamento: l'incanto dell'amicizia al suo sbocciare.