med Pecuchet.

Bouvard, who felt humiliated, had not a word to say.

She or some one else--what did it matter? The principal thing was to get
out of their difficulties.

When they received the money (they were to get the sum for the Ecalles
later) they immediately paid all their bills; and they were returning to
their abode when, at the corner of the market-place, they were stopped
by Farmer Gouy.

He had been on his way to their house to apprise them of a misfortune.
The wind, the night before, had blown down twenty apple trees into the
farmyard, overturned the boilery, and carried away the roof of the barn.

They spent the remainder of the afternoon in estimating the amount of
the damage, and they continued the inquiry on the following day with the
assistance of the carpenter, the mason, and the slater. The repairs
would cost at least about eighteen hundred francs.

Then, in the evening, Gouy presented himself. Marianne herself had, a
short time before, told him all about the sale of the Ecalles meadow--a
piece of land with a splendid yield, suitable in every way, and scarcely
requiring any cultivation at all, the best bit in the whole farm!--and
he asked for a reduction.

The two gentlemen refused it. The matter was submitted to the justice of
the peace, who decided in favour of the farmer. The loss of the Ecalles,
which was valued at two thousand francs per acre, caused him an annual
depreciation of seventy, and he was sure to win in the courts.

Their fortune was diminished. What were they to do? And soon the
question would be, How were they to live?

They both sat down to table full of discouragement. Marcel knew nothing
about it in the kitchen. His dinner this time was better than theirs.

The soup was like dish-water, the rabbit had a bad smell, the
kidney-beans were underdone, the plates were dirty, and at dessert
Bouvard burst into a passion and threatened to break everything on
Marcel's head.

"Let us be philosophers," said Pecuchet. "A little less money, the
intrigues of a woman, the clumsiness of a servant--what is it but this?
You are too much immersed in matter."

"But when it annoys me?" said Bouvard.

"For my part, I don't admit it," rejoined Pecuchet.

He had recently been reading an analysis of Berkeley, and added:

"I deny extension, time, space, even substance! for the true substance
is the mind-perceiving qualities."

"Quite so," said Bouvard; "but get rid of the world, and you'l