Meanwhile, instead of going to sleep, the subjects of the experiment were straining their eyes.
"Up to the present," said Foureau, "it is not funny. Begin. I am going away for a minute."
And he came back smoking an Abd-el-Kader, the last that was left from the gate with the pipes.
Pécuchet recalled to mind an admirable method of magnetising. He put into his mouth the noses of all the patients in succession, and inhaled their breath, in order to attract the electricity to himself; and at the same time Bouvard clasped the tree, with the object of augmenting the fluid.
The mason interrupted his hiccoughs; the beadle was agitated; the man with the contraction moved no more. It was possible now to approach them, and make them submit to all the tests.
The doctor, with his lancet, pricked Chamberlan's ear, which trembled a little. Sensibility in the case of the others was manifest. The gouty man uttered a cry. As for La Barbée, she smiled, as if in a dream, and a stream of blood trickled under her jaw.
Foureau, in order to make the experiment himself, would fain have seized the lancet, but the doctor having refused, he vigorously pinched the invalid.
The captain tickled her nostrils with a feather; the tax-collector plunged a pin under her skin.
"Let her alone now," said Vaucorbeil; "it is nothing astonishing, after all. Simply a hysterical female! The devil will have his pains for nothing."
"That one there," said Pécuchet, pointing towards Victoire, the scrofulous woman, "is a physician. She recognises diseases, and indicates the remedies."