"
The idea of succeeding in life, of seeing all her family attain to
fortune, had become a form of monomania with Felicite. Pascal, in order
to be agreeable to her, came and spent a few evenings in the yellow
drawing-room. He was much less bored there than he had apprehended. At
first he was rather stupefied at the degree of imbecility to which
sane men can sink. The old oil and almond dealers, the marquis and the
commander even, appeared to him so many curious animals, which he
had not hitherto had an opportunity of studying. He looked with a
naturalist's interest at their grimacing faces, in which he discerned
traces of their occupations and appetites; he listened also to their
inane chatter, just as he might have tried to catch the meaning of
a cat's mew or a dog's bark. At this period he was occupied with
comparative natural history, applying to the human race the observations
which he had made upon animals with regard to the working of heredity.
While he was in the yellow drawing-room, therefore, he amused himself
with the belief that he had fallen in with a menagerie. He established
comparisons between the grotesque creatures he found there and certain
animals of his acquaintance. The marquis, with his leanness and small
crafty-looking head, reminded him exactly of a long green grasshopper.
Vuillet impressed him as a pale, slimy toad. He was more considerate for
Roudier, a fat sheep, and for the commander, an old toothless mastiff.
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