xceedingly pale.

At the opposite side of the tree were other persons. A woman with an
albino type of countenance was sponging the suppurating glands of her
neck; a little girl's face half disappeared under her blue glasses; an
old man, whose spine was deformed by a contraction, with his involuntary
movements knocked against Marcel, a sort of idiot clad in a tattered
blouse and a patched pair of trousers. His hare-lip, badly stitched,
allowed his incisors to be seen, and his jaw, which was swollen by an
enormous inflammation, was muffled up in linen.

They were all holding in their hands pieces of twine that hung down from
the tree. The birds were singing, and the air was impregnated with the
refreshing smell of grass. The sun played with the branches, and the
ground was smooth as moss.

Meanwhile, instead of going to sleep, the subjects of the experiment
were straining their eyes.

"Up to the present," said Foureau, "it is not funny. Begin. I am going
away for a minute."

And he came back smoking an Abd-el-Kader, the last that was left from
the gate with the pipes.

Pecuchet recalled to mind an admirable method of magnetising. He put
into his mouth the noses of all the patients in succession, and inhaled
their breath, in order to attract the electricity to himself; and at
the same time Bouvard clasped the tree, with the object of augmenting
the fluid.

The mason interrupted his hiccoughs; the beadle was agitated; the man
with the contraction moved no more. It was possible now to approach
them, and make them submit to all the tests.

The doctor, with his lancet, pricked Chamberlan's ear, which trembled a
little. Sensibility in the case of the others was manifest. The gouty
man uttered a cry. As for La Barbee, she smiled, as if in a dream, and a
stream of blood trickled under her jaw.

Foureau, in order to make the experiment himself, would fain have seized
the lancet, but the doctor having refused, he vigorously pinched the
invalid.

The captain tickled her nostrils with a feather; the tax-collector
plunged a pin under her skin.

"Let her alone now," said Vaucorbeil; "it is nothing astonishing, after
all. Simply a hysterical female! The devil will have his pains for
nothing."

"That one there," said Pecuchet, pointing towards Victoire, the
scrofulous woman, "is a physician. She recognises diseases, and
indicates the remedies."

Langlois burned to consult her about his catarrh; but Coulon, more
courage