an tissues, 92, Rue Hautefeuille, a
voice called out:

"Bouvard! Monsieur Bouvard!"

The latter glanced through the window-panes and recognised Pecuchet, who
articulated more loudly:

"I am not ill! I have remained away!"

"Why, though?"

"This!" said Pecuchet, pointing at his breast.

All the talk of the day before, together with the temperature of the
apartment and the labours of digestion, had prevented him from sleeping,
so much so that, unable to stand it any longer, he had flung off his
flannel waistcoat. In the morning he recalled his action, which
fortunately had no serious consequences, and he came to inform Bouvard
about it, showing him in this way that he had placed him very high in
his esteem.

He was a small shopkeeper's son, and had no recollection of his mother,
who died while he was very young. At fifteen he had been taken away from
a boarding-school to be sent into the employment of a process-server.
The gendarmes invaded his employer's residence one day, and that worthy
was sent off to the galleys--a stern history which still caused him a
thrill of terror. Then he had attempted many callings--apothecary's
apprentice, usher, book-keeper in a packet-boat on the Upper Seine. At
length, a head of a department in the Admiralty, smitten by his
handwriting, had employed him as a copying-clerk; but the consciousness
of a defective education, with the intellectual needs engendered by it,
irritated his temper, and so he lived altogether alone, without
relatives, without a mistress. His only distraction was to go out on
Sunday to inspect public works.

The earliest recollections of Bouvard carried him back across the banks
of the Loire into a farmyard. A man who was his uncle had brought him to
Paris to teach him commerce. At his majority, he got a few thousand
francs. Then he took a wife, and opened a confectioner's shop. Six
months later his wife disappeared, carrying off the cash-box. Friends,
good cheer, and above all, idleness, had speedily accomplished his ruin.
But he was inspired by the notion of utilising his beautiful
chirography, and for the past twelve years he had clung to the same post
in the establishment of MM. Descambos Brothers, manufacturers of
tissues, 92, Rue Hautefeuille. As for his uncle, who formerly had sent
him the celebrated portrait as a memento, Bouvard did not even know his
residence, and expected nothing more from him. Fifteen hundred francs a
year and his salary as copyi