person cannot
always be working out of doors), to have some good literary works; and
they looked out for them, very embarrassed sometimes to know if such a
book was really "a library book."

Bouvard settled the question. "Oh! we shall not want a library. Besides,
I have my own."

They prepared their plans beforehand. Bouvard would bring his furniture,
Pecuchet his big black table; they would turn the curtains to account;
and, with a few kitchen utensils, this would be quite sufficient. They
swore to keep silent about all this, but their faces spoke volumes. So
their colleagues thought them funny. Bouvard, who wrote spread over his
desk, with his elbows out, in order the better to round his letters,
gave vent to a kind of whistle while half-closing his heavy eyelids with
a waggish air. Pecuchet, squatted on a big straw foot-stool, was always
carefully forming the pot-hooks of his large handwriting, but all the
while swelling his nostrils and pressing his lips together, as if he
were afraid of letting his secret slip.

After eighteen months of inquiries, they had discovered nothing. They
made journeys in all the outskirts of Paris, both from Amiens to Evreux,
and from Fontainebleau to Havre. They wanted a country place which would
be a thorough country place, without exactly insisting on a picturesque
site; but a limited horizon saddened them.

They fled from the vicinity of habitations, and only redoubled their
solitude.

Sometimes they made up their minds; then, fearing they would repent
later, they changed their opinion, the place having appeared unhealthy,
or exposed to the sea-breeze, or too close to a factory, or difficult of
access.

Barberou came to their rescue. He knew what their dream was, and one
fine day he called on them to let them know that he had been told about
an estate at Chavignolles, between Caen and Falaise. This comprised a
farm of thirty-eight hectares,[1] with a kind of chateau, and a garden
in a very productive state.

They proceeded to Calvados, and were quite enraptured. For the farm,
together with the house (one would not be sold without the other), only
a hundred and forty-three thousand francs were asked. Bouvard did not
want to give more than a hundred and twenty thousand.

Pecuchet combated his obstinacy, begged of him to give way, and finally
declared that he would make up the surplus himself. This was his entire
fortune, coming from his mother's patrimony and his own savings.