onel of cuirassiers, on a
vaulting-horse, his eyes still smaller, his mouth open, and his hair
straight.

How were they to reconcile the two portraits? Had he straight hair, or
rather crisped--unless he carried affectation so far as to get it
curled?

A grave question, from Pecuchet's point of view, for the mode of wearing
the hair indicates the temperament, and the temperament the individual.

Bouvard considered that we know nothing of a man as long as we are
ignorant of his passions; and in order to clear up these two points,
they presented themselves at the chateau of Faverges. The count was not
there; this retarded their work. They returned home annoyed.

The door of the house was wide open; there was nobody in the kitchen.
They went upstairs, and who should they see in the middle of Bouvard's
room but Madame Bordin, looking about her right and left!

"Excuse me," she said, with a forced laugh, "I have for the last hour
been searching for your cook, whom I wanted for my preserves."

They found her in the wood-house on a chair fast asleep. They shook her.
She opened her eyes.

"What is it now? You are always prodding at me with your questions!"

It was clear that Madame Bordin had been putting some to her in their
absence.

Germaine got out of her torpor, and complained of indigestion.

"I am remaining to take care of you," said the widow.

Then they perceived in the courtyard a big cap, the lappets of which
were fluttering. It was Madame Castillon, proprietress of a neighbouring
farm. She was calling out: "Gorju! Gorju!"

And from the corn-loft the voice of their little servant-maid answered
loudly:

"He is not there!"

At the end of five minutes she came down, with her cheeks flushed and
looking excited. Bouvard and Pecuchet reprimanded her for having been so
slow. She unfastened their gaiters without a murmur.

Then they went to look at the chest. The bakehouse was covered with its
scattered fragments; the carvings were damaged, the leaves broken.

At this sight, in the face of this fresh disaster, Bouvard had to keep
back his tears, and Pecuchet got a fit of nervous shivering.

Gorju, making his appearance almost immediately, explained the matter.
He had just put the chest outside in order to varnish it, when a
wandering cow knocked it down on the ground.

"Whose cow?" said Pecuchet.

"I don't know."

"Ah! you left the door open, as you did some time ago. It is your
fault."

At any rat