The servants, on being questioned, said they had heard nothing.
But, while walking through the garden, they remarked in the middle of a flower-bed, near the gateway, the imprint of a boot-sole, and two of the sticks used as supports for the trees were broken. Evidently some one had climbed over.
It was necessary to give notice of it to the rural guard.
As he was not at the municipal building, Pécuchet thought of going to the grocer's shop.
Who should they see in the back shop, beside Placquevent, in the midst of the topers, but Gorju—Gorju, rigged out like a well-to-do citizen, entertaining the company!
This meeting was taken as a matter of course.
So on they lapsed into a discussion about progress.
Bouvard had no doubt it existed in the domain of science. But in that of literature it was not so manifest; and if comfort increases, the poetic side of life disappears.
Pécuchet, in order to bring home conviction on the point, took a piece of paper: "I trace across here an undulating line. Those who happen to travel over it, whenever it sinks, can no longer see the horizon. It rises again nevertheless, and, in spite of its windings, they reach the top. This is an image of progress."
Madame Bordin entered at this point.