renees, error on
the other side," M. Levy asserts; and Becquerel adds that it is not a
science.

So then they ordered for their dinner oysters, a duck, pork and cabbage,
cream, a Pont l'Eveque cheese, and a bottle of Burgundy. It was an
enfranchisement, almost a revenge; and they laughed at Cornaro! It was
only an imbecile that could be tyrannised over as he had been! What
vileness to be always thinking about prolonging one's existence! Life is
good only on the condition that it is enjoyed.

"Another piece?"

"Yes, I will."

"So will I."

"Your health."

"Yours."

"And let us laugh at the rest of the world."

They became elated. Bouvard announced that he wanted three cups of
coffee, though he was not a military man. Pecuchet, with his cap over
his ears, took pinch after pinch, and sneezed without fear; and, feeling
the need of a little champagne, they ordered Germaine to go at once to
the wine-shop to buy a bottle of it. The village was too far away; she
refused. Pecuchet got indignant:

"I command you--understand!--I command you to hurry off there."

She obeyed, but, grumbling, resolved soon to have done with her masters;
they were so incomprehensible and fantastic.

Then, as in former days, they went to drink their coffee and brandy on
the hillock.

The harvest was just over, and the stacks in the middle of the fields
rose in dark heaps against the tender blue of a calm night. Nothing was
astir about the farms. Even the crickets were no longer heard. The
fields were all wrapped in sleep.

The pair digested while they inhaled the breeze which blew refreshingly
against their cheeks.

Above, the sky was covered with stars; some shone in clusters, others in
a row, or rather alone, at certain distances from each other. A zone of
luminous dust, extending from north to south, bifurcated above their
heads. Amid these splendours there were vast empty spaces, and the
firmament seemed a sea of azure with archipelagoes and islets.

"What a quantity!" exclaimed Bouvard.

"We do not see all," replied Pecuchet. "Behind the Milky Way are the
nebulae, and behind the nebulae, stars still; the most distant is
separated from us by three millions of myriametres."[7]

He had often looked into the telescope of the Place Vendome, and he
recalled the figures.

"The sun is a million times bigger than the earth; Sirius is twelve
times the size of the sun; comets measure thirty-four millions of
leagues."

"'Tis enough