Monsieur Lieuvain then sat down; Monsieur Derozerays got up, beginning

another speech. His was not perhaps so florid as that of the councillor,

but it recommended itself by a more direct style, that is to say, by

more special knowledge and more elevated considerations. Thus the praise

of the Government took up less space in it; religion and agriculture

more. He showed in it the relations of these two, and how they had

always contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame Bovary was

talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. Going back to the cradle of

society, the orator painted those fierce times when men lived on acorns

in the heart of woods. Then they had left off the skins of beasts, had

put on cloth, tilled the soil, planted the vine. Was this a good, and

in this discovery was there not more of injury than of gain? Monsieur

Derozerays set himself this problem. From magnetism little by little

Rodolphe had come to affinities, and while the president was citing

Cincinnatus and his plough, Diocletian, planting his cabbages, and the

Emperors of China inaugurating the year by the sowing of seed, the

young man was explaining to the young woman that these irresistible

attractions find their cause in some previous state of existence.

"Thus we," he said, "why did we come to know one another? What chance

willed it? It was because across the infinite, like two streams that

flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had driven us towards each

other."

And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it.

"For good farming generally!" cried the president.

"Just now, for example, when I went to your house."

"To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix."

"Did I know I should accompany you?"

"Seventy francs."

"A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you--I remained."

"Manures!"

"And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my life!"

"To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!"

"For I have never in the society of any other person found so complete a

charm."

"To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin."

"And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you."

"For a merino ram!"

"But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow."

"To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame."

"Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in your life, shall I

not?"

"Porcine race; prizes--equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and Cullembourg,

sixty francs!"




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