The phenomenon of table-turning is none the less certain. The common
herd attribute it to spirits; Faraday to prolonged nervous action;
Chevreuil to unconscious efforts; or perhaps, as Segouin admits, there
is evolved from the assembly of persons an impulse, a magnetic current.

This hypothesis made Pecuchet reflect. He took into his library the
_Magnetiser's Guide_, by Montacabere, read it over attentively, and
initiated Bouvard in the theory: All animated bodies receive and
communicate the influence of the stars--a property analogous to the
virtue of the loadstone. By directing this force we may cure the sick;
there is the principle. Science has developed since Mesmer; but it is
always an important thing to pour out the fluid and to make passes,
which, in the first place, must have the effect of inducing sleep.

"Well! send me to sleep," said Bouvard.

"Impossible!" replied Pecuchet: "in order to be subject to the magnetic
action, and to transmit it, faith is indispensable."

Then, gazing at Bouvard: "Ah! what a pity!"

"How?"

"Yes, if you wished, with a little practice, there would not be a
magnetiser anywhere like you."

For he possessed everything that was needed: easiness of access, a
robust constitution, and a solid mind.

The discovery just made of such a faculty in himself was flattering to
Bouvard. He took a plunge into Montacabere's book on the sly.

Then, as Germaine used to feel buzzings in her ears that deafened her,
he said to her one evening in a careless tone:

"Suppose we try magnetism?"

She did not make any objection to it. He sat down in front of her, took
her two thumbs in his hands, and looked fixedly at her, as if he had not
done anything else all his life.

The old dame, with her feet on a footwarmer, began by bending her neck;
her eyes closed, and quite gently she began to snore. At the end of an
hour, during which they had been staring at her, Pecuchet said in a low
tone:

"What do you feel?"

She awoke.

Later, no doubt, would come lucidity.

This success emboldened them, and, resuming with self-confidence, the
practice of medicine, they nursed Chamberlan, the beadle, for pains in
his ribs; Migraine the mason, who had a nervous affection of the
stomach; Mere Varin, whose encephaloid under the collar-bone required,
in order to nourish her, plasters of meat; a gouty patient, Pere
Lemoine, who used to crawl by the side of taverns; a consumptive; a
person afflicted with he