to make one crazy!" said Bouvard.

He lamented his ignorance, and even regretted that he had not been in
his youth at the Polytechnic School.

Then Pecuchet, turning him in the direction of the Great Bear, showed
him the polar star; then Cassiopeia, whose constellation forms a Y;
Vega, of the Lyra constellation--all scintillating; and at the lower
part of the horizon, the red Aldebaran.

Bouvard, with his head thrown back, followed with difficulty the angles,
quadrilaterals, and pentagons, which it is necessary to imagine in order
to make yourself at home in the sky.

Pecuchet went on:

"The swiftness of light is eighty thousand leagues a second; one ray of
the Milky Way takes six centuries to reach us; so that a star at the
moment we observe it may have disappeared. Several are intermittent;
others never come back; and they change positions. Every one of them is
in motion; every one of them is passing on."

"However, the sun is motionless."

"It was believed to be so formerly. But to-day men of science declare
that it rushes towards the constellation of Hercules!"

This put Bouvard's ideas out of order--and, after a minute's reflection:

"Science is constructed according to the data furnished by a corner of
space. Perhaps it does not agree with all the rest that we are ignorant
of, which is much vaster, and which we cannot discover."

So they talked, standing on the hillock, in the light of the stars; and
their conversation was interrupted by long intervals of silence.

At last they asked one another whether there were men in the stars. Why
not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to
be gigantic, those of Mars of middle stature, those of Venus very small.
Unless it should be everywhere the same thing. There are merchants up
there, and gendarmes; they trade there; they fight there; they dethrone
kings there.

Some shooting stars slipped suddenly, describing on the sky, as it were,
the parabola of an enormous rocket.

"Stop!" said Bouvard; "here are vanishing worlds."

Pecuchet replied:

"If ours, in its turn, kicks the bucket, the citizens of the stars will
not be more moved than we are now. Ideas like this may pull down your
pride."

"What is the object of all this?"

"Perhaps it has no object."

"However----" And Pecuchet repeated two or three times "however,"
without finding anything more to say.

"No matter. I should very much like to know how the universe is made.