expressed that
it was an imposture altogether unpardonable to have smuggled a wooden
puppet instead of a living person into intelligent tea-circles,--for
Olimpia had been present at several with success. Lawyers called it a
cunning piece of knavery, and all the harder to punish since it was
directed against the public; and it had been so craftily contrived that
it had escaped unobserved by all except a few preternaturally acute
students, although everybody was very wise now and remembered to have
thought of several facts which occurred to them as suspicious. But
these latter could not succeed in making out any sort of a consistent
tale. For was it, for instance, a thing likely to occur to any one as
suspicious that, according to the declaration of an elegant beau of
these tea-parties, Olimpia had, contrary to all good manners, sneezed
oftener than she had yawned? The former must have been, in the opinion
of this elegant gentleman, the winding up of the concealed clock-work;
it had always been accompanied by an observable creaking, and so on.
The Professor of Poetry and Eloquence took a pinch of snuff, and,
slapping the lid to and clearing his throat, said solemnly, "My most
honourable ladies and gentlemen, don't you see then where the rub is?
The whole thing is an allegory, a continuous metaphor. You understand
me? _Sapienti sat._" But several most honourable gentlemen did not rest
satisfied with this explanation; the history of this automaton had sunk
deeply into their souls, and an absurd mistrust of human figures began
to prevail. Several lovers, in order to be fully convinced that they
were not paying court to a wooden puppet, required that their mistress
should sing and dance a little out of time, should embroider or knit or
play with her little pug, &c., when being read to, but above all things
else that she should do something more than merely listen--that she
should frequently speak in such a way as to really show that her words
presupposed as a condition some thinking and feeling. The bonds of love
were in many cases drawn closer in consequence, and so of course became
more engaging; in other instances they gradually relaxed and fell away.
"I cannot really be made responsible for it," was the remark of more
than one young gallant. At the tea-gatherings everybody, in order to
ward off suspicion, yawned to an incredible extent and never sneezed.
Spalanzani was obliged, as has been said, to leave the place in order