n, and at the same time like
grains of dust under the microscope.

In the most commonplace things arise new aspects. They never suspected
that there were such depths in modern life.

"What an observer!" exclaimed Bouvard.

"For my part I consider him chimerical," Pecuchet ended by declaring.
"He believes in the occult sciences, in monarchy, in rank; is dazzled by
rascals; turns up millions for you like centimes; and middle-class
people are not with him middle-class people at all, but giants. Why
inflate what is unimportant, and waste description on silly things? He
wrote one novel on chemistry, another on banking, another on
printing-machines, just as one Ricard produced _The Cabman_, _The
Water-Carrier_ and _The Cocoa-Nut Seller_. We should soon have books on
every trade and on every province; then on every town and on the
different stories of every house, and on every individual--which would
be no longer literature but statistics or ethnography."

The process was of little consequence in Bouvard's estimation. He wanted
to get information--to acquire a deeper knowledge of human nature. He
read Paul de Kock again, and ran through the _Old Hermits of the
Chaussee d'Antin_.

"Why lose one's time with such absurdities?" said Pecuchet.

"But they might be very interesting as a series of documents."

"Go away with your documents! I want something to lift me up, and take
me away from the miseries of this world."

And Pecuchet, craving for the ideal, led Bouvard unconsciously towards
tragedy.

The far-off times in which the action takes place, the interests with
which it is concerned, and the high station of its leading personages
impressed them with a certain sense of grandeur.

One day Bouvard took up _Athalie_, and recited the dream so well that
Pecuchet wished to attempt it in his turn. From the opening sentence his
voice got lost in a sort of humming sound. It was monotonous and, though
strong, indistinct.

Bouvard, full of experience, advised him, in order to render it
well-modulated, to roll it out from the lowest tone to the highest, and
to draw it back by making use of an ascending and descending scale; and
he himself went through this exercise every morning in bed, according to
the precept of the Greeks. Pecuchet, at the time mentioned, worked in
the same fashion: each had his door closed, and they went on bawling
separately.

The features that pleased them in tragedy were the emphasis, the
political