The Life of the Fly 



ing them. Suppress that term and you have 

 the parabola, which vainly seeks in infinity its 

 lost second focus; you have the trajectory of 

 the bombshell; you have the path of certain 

 comets which come one day to visit our sun 

 and then flee to depths whence they never re- 

 turn. Is it not wonderful thus to formulate 

 the orbit of the worlds? I thought so then 

 and I think so still. 



After fifteen months of this exercise, we 

 went up together for our examination at 

 Montpellier; and both of us received our de- 

 grees as bachelors of mathematical science. 

 My companion was a wreck: I, on the other 

 hand, had refreshed myself with analytical 

 geometry. 



Utterly worn out by his course of conic 

 sections, my chum declares that he has had 

 enough. In vain I hold out the glittering 

 prospect of a new degree, that of licentiate 

 of mathematical science, which would lead us 

 to the splendours of the higher mathematics 

 and initiate us into the mechanics of the 

 heavens: I cannot prevail upon him, cannot 

 make him share my audacity. He calls it a 

 mad scheme, which will exhaust us and come 

 to nothing. Without the advice of an ex- 

 perienced pilot, with no other compass than 



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