cheeks.
Above, the sky was covered with stars; some shone in clusters, others in a row, or rather alone, at certain distances from each other. A zone of luminous dust, extending from north to south, bifurcated above their heads. Amid these splendours there were vast empty spaces, and the firmament seemed a sea of azure with archipelagoes and islets.
"What a quantity!" exclaimed Bouvard.
"We do not see all," replied Pécuchet. "Behind the Milky Way are the nebulæ, and behind the nebulæ, stars still; the most distant is separated from us by three millions of myriamètres."[7]
He had often looked into the telescope of the Place Vendôme, and he recalled the figures.
"The sun is a million times bigger than the earth; Sirius is twelve times the size of the sun; comets measure thirty-four millions of leagues."
"'Tis enough to make one crazy!" said Bouvard.
He lamented his ignorance, and even regretted that he had not been in his youth at the Polytechnic School.
Then Pécuchet, turning him in the direction of the Great Bear, showed him the polar star; then Cassiopeia, whose constellation forms a Y; Vega, of the Lyra constellation--all scintillating; and at the lower part of the horizon, the red Aldebaran.
Bouvard, with his head thrown back, followed with difficulty the angles, quadrilaterals, and pentagons, which it is necessary to imagine in order to make yourself at home in the sky.
Pécuchet went on:
"The swiftness of light is eighty thousand leagues a second; one ray of the Milky Way takes six centuries to reach us; so that a star at the moment we observe it may have disappeared. Several are intermittent; others never come back; and they change positions. Every one of them is in motion; every one of them is passing on."
"However, the sun is motionless."
"It was believed to be so formerly. But to-day men of science declare that it rushes towards the constellation of Hercules!"
This put Bouvard's ideas out of order--and, after a minute's reflection:
"Science is constructed according to the data furnished by a corner of space. Perhaps it does not agree with all the rest that we are ignorant of, which is much vaster, and which we cannot discover."
So they talked, standing on the hillock, in the light of the stars; and their conversation was interrupted by long intervals of silence.
At last they asked one another whether there were men in the stars. Why not? And as creation is harmonious, the inhabitants of Sirius ought to be gigantic, those of Mars of middle stature, those of Venus very small. Unless it should be everywhere the same thing. There are merchants up there, and gendarmes; they trade there; they fight there; they dethrone kings there.
Some shooting stars slipped suddenly, describing on the sky, as it were, the parabola of an enormous rocket.
"Stop!" said Bouvard; "here are vanishing worlds."
Pécuchet replied:
"If ours, in its turn, kicks the bucket, the citizens of the stars will not be more moved than we are now. Ideas like this may pull down your pride."
"What is the object of all this?"
"Perhaps it has no object."
"However----" And Pécuchet repeated two or three times "however," without finding anything more to say.
"No matter. I should very much like to know how the universe is made."
"That should be in Buffon," returned Bouvard, whose eyes were closing.
"I am not equal to any more of it. I am going to bed."
The
Epoques de la Nature
informed them that a comet by knocking against the sun had detached one portion of it, which became the earth. First, the poles had cooled; all the waters had enveloped the globe; they subsided into the caverns; then the continents separated from each other, and the beasts and man appeared.
The majesty of creation engendered in them an amazement infinite as itself. Their heads got enlarged. They were proud of reflecting on such lofty themes.
The minerals ere long proved wearisome to them, and for distraction they sought refuge in the
Harmonies
of Bernardin
Elsa Day
Nick Place
Lillian Grant
Duncan McKenzie
Beth Kery
Brian Gallagher
Gayle Kasper
Cherry Kay
Chantal Fernando
Helen Scott Taylor