The count distributed his pamphlets, requesting them to hand them round to other people.
Vaucorbeil was leaving, when Pécuchet stopped him.
"You are forgetting me, doctor."
His yellow physiognomy was pitiable, with his moustaches and his black hair, which was hanging down under a silk handkerchief badly fastened.
"Purge yourself," said the doctor. And, giving him two little slaps as if to a child: "Too much nerves, too much artist!"
"No, surely!"
They summed up what they had just heard. The morality of art is contained for every person in that which flatters that person's interests. No one has any love for literature.
After this they turned over the count's pamphlets.
They found in all of a demand for universal suffrage.
"It seems to me," said Pécuchet, "that we shall soon have some squabbling."