In order to excite themselves the better, they kept awake at night, fasted, and, wishing to convert Germaine into a more delicate medium, they limited her diet. She indemnified herself by drinking, and consumed so much brandy that she speedily ended in becoming intoxicated. Their promenades in the corridor awakened her. She confused the noise of their footsteps with the hummings in her ears and the voices which she imagined she heard coming from the walls. One day, when she had put a plaice into the pantry, she was frightened on seeing it covered with flame; she became worse than ever after that, and ended by believing that they had cast a spell over her.
Hoping to behold visions, they pressed the napes of each other's necks; they made themselves little bags of belladonna; finally they adopted the magic box, out of which rises a mushroom bristling with nails, to be worn over the heart by means of a ribbon attached to the breast. Everything proved unsuccessful. But they might make use of the sphere of Dupotet!
Pécuchet, with a piece of charcoal, traced on the ground a black shield, in order to enclose within its compass the animal spirits whose duty it is to assist the ambient spirits, and rejoicing at having the mastery over Bouvard, he said to him, with a pontifical air:
"I defy you to cross it!"
Bouvard viewed this circular space. Soon his heart began throbbing, his eyes became clouded.
"Ha! let us make an end of it!" And he jumped over it, to get rid of an inexpressible sense of unpleasantness.
Pécuchet, whose exultation was increasing, desired to make a corpse appear.
Under the Directory a man in the Rue de l'Échiquier exhibited the victims of the Terror. There are innumerable examples of persons coming back from the other world. Though it may be a mere appearance, what matter? The thing was to produce the effect.
The nearer to us we feel the phantom, the more promptly it responds to our appeal. But he had no relic of his family—ring, miniature, or lock of hair—while Bouvard was in a position to conjure up his father; but, as he testified a certain repugnance on the subject, Pécuchet asked him:
"What are you afraid of?"