Nothing, nothing at all." And, taking up one of the
pieces from the table, "What is this?"

"The buccinator," replied Bouvard.

Foureau said nothing, but smiled in a sly fashion, jealous of their
having an amusement which he could not afford.

The two anatomists pretended to be pursuing their investigations. The
people outside, getting bored with waiting, made their way into the
bakehouse, and, as they began pushing one another a little, the table
shook.

"Ah! this is too annoying," exclaimed Pecuchet. "Let us be rid of the
public!"

The keeper made the busybodies take themselves off.

"Very well," said Bouvard; "we don't want anyone."

Foureau understood the allusion, and put it to them whether, not being
medical men, they had the right to keep such an object in their
possession. However, he was going to write to the prefect.

What a country district it was! There could be nothing more foolish,
barbarous, and retrograde. The comparison which they instituted between
themselves and the others consoled them--they felt a longing to suffer
in the cause of science.

The doctor, too, came to see them. He disparaged the model as too far
removed from nature, but took advantage of the occasion to give them a
lecture.

Bouvard and Pecuchet were delighted; and at their request M. Vaucorbeil
lent them several volumes out of his library, declaring at the same time
that they would not reach the end of them. They took note of the cases
of childbirth, longevity, obesity, and extraordinary constipation given
in the _Dictionary of Medical Sciences_. Would that they had known the
famous Canadian, De Beaumont, the polyphagi, Tarare and Bijou, the
dropsical woman from the department of Eure, the Piedmontese who went
every twenty days to the water-closet, Simon de Mirepoix, who was
ossified at the time of his death, and that ancient mayor of Angouleme
whose nose weighed three pounds!

The brain inspired them with philosophic reflections. They easily
distinguished in the interior of it the _septum lucidum_, composed of
two lamellae, and the pineal gland, which is like a little red pea. But
there were peduncles and ventricles, arches, columns, strata, ganglions,
and fibres of all kinds, and the foramen of Pacchioni and the "body" of
Paccini; in short, an inextricable mass of details, enough to wear their
lives out.

Sometimes, in a fit of dizziness, they would take the figure completely
to pieces, then would get perplexed about