but a
better means might be devised, and they should be informed about it.

After this they thought of their poor garden. Bouvard undertook the
pruning of the row of elms and Pecuchet the trimming of the espalier.
Marcel would have to dig the borders.

At the end of a quarter of an hour they stopped. The one closed his
pruning-knife, the other laid down his scissors, and they began to walk
to and fro quietly, Bouvard in the shade of the linden trees, with his
waistcoat off, his chest held out and his arms bare; Pecuchet close to
the wall, with his head hanging down, his arms behind his back, the peak
of his cap turned over his neck for precaution; and thus they proceeded
in parallel lines without even seeing Marcel, who was resting at the
side of the hut eating a scrap of bread.

In this reflective mood thoughts arose in their minds. They grasped at
them, fearing to lose them; and metaphysics came back again--came back
with respect to the rain and the sun, the gravel in their shoes, the
flowers on the grass--with respect to everything. When they looked at
the candle burning, they asked themselves whether the light is in the
object or in our eyes. Since stars may have disappeared by the time
their radiance has reached us, we admire, perhaps, things that have no
existence.

Having found a Raspail cigarette in the depths of a waistcoat, they
crumbled it over some water, and the camphor moved about. Here, then, is
movement in matter. One degree more of movement might bring on life!

But if matter in movement were sufficient to create beings, they would
not be so varied. For in the beginning lands, water, men, and plants had
no existence. What, then, is this primordial matter, which we have never
seen, which is no portion of created things, and which yet has produced
them all?

Sometimes they wanted a book. Dumouchel, tired of assisting them, no
longer answered their letters. They enthusiastically took up the new
question, especially Pecuchet. His need of truth became a burning
thirst.

Moved by Bouvard's preachings, he gave up spiritualism, but soon resumed
it again only to abandon it once more, and, clasping his head with his
hands, he would exclaim:

"Oh, doubt! doubt! I would much prefer nothingness."

Bouvard perceived the insufficiency of materialism, and tried to stop at
that, declaring, however, that he had lost his head over it.

They began with arguments on a solid basis, but the basis gave way; and
su