e, they would have nothing more to do with him. He had been
trifling with them too long, and they wanted no more of him or his work.

"These gentlemen were wrong. The damage was not so great. It would be
all settled before three weeks." And Gorju accompanied them into the
kitchen, where Germaine was seen dragging herself along to see after the
dinner.

They noticed on the table a bottle of Calvados, three quarters emptied.

"By you, no doubt," said Pecuchet to Gorju.

"By me! never!"

Bouvard met his protest by observing:

"You are the only man in the house."

"Well, and what about the women?" rejoined the workman, with a side
wink.

Germaine caught him up:

"You'd better say 'twas I!"

"Certainly it was you."

"And perhaps 'twas I smashed the press?"

Gorju danced about.

"Don't you see that she's drunk?"

Then they squabbled violently with each other, he with a pale face and a
biting manner, she purple with rage, tearing tufts of grey hair from
under her cotton cap. Madame Bordin took Germaine's part, while Melie
took Gorju's.

The old woman burst out:

"Isn't it an abomination that you two should be spending days together
in the grove, not to speak of the nights?--a sort of Parisian, eating up
honest women, who comes to our master's house to play tricks on them!"

Bouvard opened his eyes wide.

"What tricks?"

"I tell you he's making fools of you!"

"Nobody can make a fool of me!" exclaimed Pecuchet, and, indignant at
her insolence, exasperated by the mortification inflicted on him, he
dismissed her, telling her to go and pack. Bouvard did not oppose this
decision, and they went out, leaving Germaine in sobs over her
misfortune, while Madame Bordin was trying to console her.

In the course of the evening, as they grew calmer, they went over these
occurrences, asked themselves who had drunk the Calvados, how the chest
got broken, what Madame Castillon wanted when she was calling Gorju, and
whether he had dishonoured Melie.

"We are not able to tell," said Bouvard, "what is happening in our own
household, and we lay claim to discover all about the hair and the love
affairs of the Duke of Angouleme."

Pecuchet added: "How many questions there are in other respects
important and still more difficult!"

Whence they concluded that external facts are not everything. It is
necessary to complete them by means of psychology. Without imagination,
history is defective.

"Let us send for some hi