“Really!”
And without more words, the cocoons passed into the pocket of the savant, who was to instruct himself at his leisure touching that great novelty, the chrysalis. I was struck by this magnificent assurance. Pasteur had come to regenerate the Silkworm, while knowing nothing about caterpillars, cocoons, chrysalids or metamorphoses. The ancient gymnasts came naked to the fight. The talented combatant of the plague of our Silk-worm-nurseries hastened to the battle likewise naked, that is to say, destitute of the simplest notions about the insect which he was to deliver from danger. I was staggered; nay, more, I was thunderstruck.
I was not so much amazed by what followed. Pasteur was occupied at the time with another question, that of the improvement of wine by heating. Suddenly changing the conversation,
“Show me your cellar,” he said.
I! I show my cellar, my private cellar, poor I, lately, with my pitiful teacher’s salary, could not allow myself the luxury of a little wine and used to make a sort of [[158]]small cider by setting a handful of brown sugar and some grated apples to ferment in a jar! My cellar! Show my cellar! Why not my barrels, my cobwebbed bottles, each labelled with its year and quality! My cellar!
Full of confusion, I evaded the request and tried to change the subject. But he persisted:
“Show me your cellar, please.”
There was no resisting such firmness. I pointed with my finger to a corner in the kitchen, where stood a chair with no seat to it and, on that chair, a demijohn containing two or three gallons.
“That’s my cellar, sir.”
“Is that your cellar?”