PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE

 PART FIRST

 BY

 HONORE DE BALZAC

 PREFACE

 IN WHICH EVERY ONE WILL FIND HIS OWN IMPRESSIONS OF MARRIAGE. 

 A friend, in speaking to you of a young woman, says: "Good family, well bred, pretty, and three hundred thousand in her own right. " You have expressed a desire to meet this charming creature. 

 Usually, chance interviews are premeditated. And you speak with this object, who has now become very timid. 

 YOU. --"A delightful evening!"

 SHE. --"Oh! yes, sir. "

 You are allowed to become the suitor of this young person. 

 THE MOTHER-IN-LAW (to the intended groom). --"You can't imagine how susceptible the dear girl is of attachment. "

 Meanwhile there is a delicate pecuniary question to be discussed by the two families. 

 YOUR FATHER (to the mother-in-law). --"My property is valued at five hundred thousand francs, my dear madame!"

 YOUR FUTURE MOTHER-IN-LAW. --"And our house, my dear sir, is on a corner lot. "

 A contract follows, drawn up by two hideous notaries, a small one, and a big one. 

 Then the two families judge it necessary to convoy you to the civil magistrate's and to the church, before conducting the bride to her chamber. 

 Then what? . . . . . Why, then come a crowd of petty unforeseen troubles, like the following:

 PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE

 THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL. 

Is it a petty or a profound trouble? I knew not; it is profound foryour sons-in-law or daughters-in-law, but exceedingly petty for you. 

"Petty! You must be joking; why, a child costs terribly dear!"exclaims a ten-times-too-happy husband, at the baptism of hiseleventh, called the little last newcomer, --a phrase with which womenbeguile their families. 

"What trouble is this?" you ask me. Well! this is, like many pettytroubles of married life, a blessing for some one. 

You have, four months since, married off your daughter, whom we willcall by the sweet name of CAROLINE, and whom we will make the type ofall wives. Caroline is, like all other young ladies, very charming, and you have found for her a husband who is either a lawyer, acaptain, an engineer, a judge, or perhaps a young viscount. But he ismore likely to be what sensible families must seek, --the ideal oftheir desires--the only son of a rich landed proprietor. (See the_Preface_. )

This phoenix we will call ADOLPHE, whatever may be his position in theworld, his age, and the color of his hair. 

The lawyer, the captain, the engineer, the judge, in short, theson-in-law, Adolphe, and his family, have seen in Miss Caroline:

I. --Miss Caroline;

II. --The only daughter of your wife and you. 

Here, as in the Chamber of Deputies, we are compelled to call for adivision of the house:

1. --As to your wife. 

Your wife is to inherit the property of a maternal uncle, a gouty oldfellow whom she humors, nurses, caresses, and muffles up; to saynothing of her father's fortune. Caroline has always adored her uncle, --her uncle who trotted her on his knee, her uncle who--her unclewhom--her uncle, in short, --whose property is estimated at two hundredthousand. 

Further, your wife is well preserved, though her age has been thesubject of mature reflection on the part of your son-in-law'sgrandparents and other ancestors. After many skirmishes between themothers-in-law, they have at last confided to each other the littlesecrets peculiar to women of ripe years. 

"How is it with you, my dear madame?"

"I, thank heaven, have passed the period; and you?"

"I really hope I have, too!" says your wife. 

"You can marry Caroline, " says Adolphe's mother to your futureson-in-law; "Caroline will be the sole heiress of her mother, of heruncle, and her grandfather. "

2. --As to yourself. 

You are also the heir of your maternal grandfather, a good old manwhose possessions will surely fall to you, for he has grown imbecile, and is therefore incapable of making a will. 

You are an amiable man, but you have been very dissipated in youryouth. Besides, you are fifty-nine years old, and your head is bald, resembling a bare knee in the middle of a gray wig. 

III. --A dowry of three hundred thousand. 

IV. --Caroline's only sister, a little dunce of twelve, a sickly child, who bids fair to fill an early grave. 

V. --Your own fortune, father-in-law (in certain kinds of society theysay _papa father-in-law_) yielding an income of twenty thousand, andwhich will soon be increased by an inheritance. 

VI. --Your wife's fortune, which will be increased by two inheritances--from her uncle and her grandfather. In all, thus:

 Three inheritances and interest, 750, 000 Your fortune, 250, 000 Your wife's fortune, 250, 000 __________

 Total, 1, 250, 000

which surely cannot take wing!

Such is the autopsy of all those brilliant marriages that conducttheir processions of dancers and eaters, in white gloves, flowering atthe button-hole, with bouquets of orange flowers, furbelows, veils, coaches and coach-drivers, from the magistrate's to the church, fromthe church to the banquet, from the banquet to the dance, from thedance to the nuptial chamber, to the music of the orchestra and theaccompaniment of the immemorial pleasantries uttered by relics ofdandies, for are there not, here and there in society, relics ofdandies, as there are relics of English horses? To be sure, and suchis the osteology of the most amorous intent. 

The majority of the relatives have had a word to say about thismarriage. 

Those on the side of the bridegroom:

"Adolphe has made a good thing of it. "

Those on the side of the bride:

"Caroline has made a splendid match. Adolphe is an only son, and willhave an income of sixty thousand, _some day or other_!"

Some time afterwards, the happy judge, the happy engineer, the happycaptain, the happy lawyer, the happy only son of a rich landedproprietor, in short Adolphe, comes to dine with you, accompanied byhis family. 

Your daughter Caroline is exceedingly proud of the somewhat roundedform of her waist. All women display an innocent artfulness, the firsttime they find themselves facing motherhood. Like a soldier who makesa brilliant toilet for his first battle, they love to play the pale, the suffering; they rise in a certain manner, and walk with theprettiest affectation. While yet flowers, they bear a fruit; theyenjoy their maternity by anticipation. All those little ways areexceedingly charming--the first time. 

Your wife, now the mother-in-law of Adolphe, subjects herself to thepressure of tight corsets. When her daughter laughs, she weeps; whenCaroline wishes her happiness public, she tries to conceal hers. Afterdinner, the discerning eye of the co-mother-in-law divines the work ofdarkness. 

Your wife also is an expectant mother! The news spreads likelightning, and your oldest college friend says to you laughingly: "Ah!so you are trying to increase the population again!"

You have some hope in a consultation that is to take place to-morrow. You, kind-hearted man that you are, you turn red, you hope it ismerely the dropsy; but the doctors confirm the arrival of a _littlelast one_!

In such circumstances some timorous husbands go to the country or makea journey to Italy. In short, a strange confusion reigns in yourhousehold; both you and your wife are in a false position. 

"Why, you old rogue, you, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!" says afriend to you on the Boulevard. 

"Well! do as much if you can, " is your angry retort. 

"It's as bad as being robbed on the highway!" says your son-in-law'sfamily. "Robbed on the highway" is a flattering expression for themother-in-law. 

The family hopes that the child which divides the expected fortune inthree parts, will be, like all old men's children, scrofulous, feeble, an abortion. Will it be likely to live? The family awaits the deliveryof your wife with an anxiety like that which agitated the house ofOrleans during the confinement of the Duchess de Berri: a second sonwould secure the throne to the younger branch without the onerousconditions of July; Henry V would easily seize the crown. From thatmoment the house of Orleans was obliged to play double or quits: theevent gave them the game. 

The mother and the daughter are put to bed nine days apart. 

Caroline's first child is a pale, cadaverous little girl that will notlive. 

Her mother's last child is a splendid boy, weighing twelve pounds, with two teeth and luxuriant hair. 

For sixteen years you have desired a son. This conjugal annoyance isthe only one that makes you beside yourself with joy. For yourrejuvenated wife has attained what must be called the _Indian Summer_of women; she nurses, she has a full breast of milk! Her complexion isfresh, her color is pure pink and white. In her forty-second year, sheaffects the young woman, buys little baby stockings, walks aboutfollowed by a nurse, embroiders caps and tries on the cunningestheaddresses. Alexandrine has resolved to instruct her daughter by herexample; she is delightful and happy. And yet this is a trouble, apetty one for you, a serious one for your son-in-law. This annoyanceis of the two sexes, it is common to you and your wife. In short, inthis instance, your paternity renders you all the more proud from thefact that it is incontestable, my dear sir!

 REVELATIONS. 

Generally speaking, a young woman does not exhibit her true charactertill she has been married two or three years. She hides her faults, without intending it, in the midst of her first joys, of her firstparties of pleasure. She goes into society to dance, she visits herrelatives to show you off, she journeys on with an escort of love'sfirst wiles; she is gradually transformed from girlhood to womanhood. Then she becomes mother and nurse, and in this situation, full ofcharming pangs, that leaves neither a word nor a moment forobservation, such are its multiplied cares, it is impossible to judgeof a woman. You require, then, three or four years of intimate lifebefore you discover an exceedingly melancholy fact, one that gives youcause for constant terror. 

Your wife, the young lady in whom the first pleasures of life and lovesupplied the place of grace and wit, so arch, so animated, sovivacious, whose least movements spoke with delicious eloquence, hascast off, slowly, one by one, her natural artifices. At last youperceive the truth! You try to disbelieve it, you think yourselfdeceived; but no: Caroline lacks intellect, she is dull, she canneither joke nor reason, sometimes she has little tact. You arefrightened. You find yourself forever obliged to lead this darlingthrough the thorny paths, where you must perforce leave yourself-esteem in tatters. 

You have already been annoyed several times by replies that, insociety, were politely received: people have held their tonguesinstead of smiling; but you were certain that after your departure thewomen looked at each other and said: "Did you hear Madame Adolphe?"

"Your little woman, she is--"

"A regular cabbage-head. "

"How could he, who is certainly a man of sense, choose--?"

"He should educate, teach his wife, or make her hold her tongue. "

 AXIOMS. 

Axiom. --In our system of civilization a man is entirely responsiblefor his wife. 

Axiom. --The husband does not mould the wife. 

Caroline has one day obstinately maintained, at the house of Madame deFischtaminel, a very distinguished lady, that her little last oneresembled neither its father nor its mother, but looked like a certainfriend of the family. She perhaps enlightens Monsieur de Fischtaminel, and overthrows the labors of three years, by tearing down thescaffolding of Madame de Fischtaminel's assertions, who, after thisvisit, will treat you will coolness, suspecting, as she does, that youhave been making indiscreet remarks to your wife. 

On another occasion, Caroline, after having conversed with a writerabout his works, counsels the poet, who is already a prolific author, to try to write something likely to live. Sometimes she complains ofthe slow attendance at the tables of people who have but one servantand have put themselves to great trouble to receive her. Sometimes shespeaks ill of widows who marry again, before Madame Deschars who hasmarried a third time, and on this occasion, an ex-notary, Nicolas-Jean-Jerome-Nepomucene-Ange-Marie-Victor-Joseph Deschars, afriend of your father's. 

In short, you are no longer yourself when you are in society with yourwife. Like a man who is riding a skittish horse and glares straightbetween the beast's two ears, you are absorbed by the attention withwhich you listen to your Caroline. 

In order to compensate herself for the silence to which young ladiesare condemned, Caroline talks; or rather babbles. She wants to make asensation, and she does make a sensation; nothing stops her. Sheaddresses the most eminent men, the most celebrated women. Sheintroduces herself, and puts you on the rack. Going into society isgoing to the stake. 

She begins to think you are cross-grained, moody. The fact is, you arewatching her, that's all! In short, you keep her within a small circleof friends, for she has already embroiled you with people on whom yourinterests depended. 

How many times have you recoiled from the necessity of a remonstrance, in the morning, on awakening, when you had put her in a good humor forlistening! A woman rarely listens. How many times have you recoiledfrom the burthen of your imperious obligations!

The conclusion of your ministerial communication can be no other than:"You have no sense. " You foresee the effect of your first lesson. Caroline will say to herself: "Ah I have no sense! Haven't I though?"

No woman ever takes this in good part. Both of you must draw the swordand throw away the scabbard. Six weeks after, Caroline may prove toyou that she has quite sense enough to _minotaurize_ you without yourperceiving it. 

Frightened at such a prospect, you make use of all the eloquentphrases to gild this pill. In short, you find the means of flatteringCaroline's various self-loves, for:

Axiom. --A married woman has several self-loves. 

You say that you are her best friend, the only one well situated toenlighten her; the more careful you are, the more watchful and puzzledshe is. At this moment she has plenty of sense. 

You ask your dear Caroline, whose waist you clasp, how she, who is sobrilliant when alone with you, who retorts so charmingly (you remindher of sallies that she has never made, which you put in her mouth, and, which she smilingly accepts), how she can say this, that, and theother, in society. She is, doubtless, like many ladies, timid incompany. 

"I know, " you say, "many very distinguished men who are just thesame. "

You cite the case of some who are admirable tea-party oracles, but whocannot utter half a dozen sentences in the tribune. Caroline shouldkeep watch over herself; you vaunt silence as the surest method ofbeing witty. In society, a good listener is highly prized. 

You have broken the ice, though you have not even scratched its glossysurface: you have placed your hand upon the croup of the mostferocious and savage, the most wakeful and clear-sighted, the mostrestless, the swiftest, the most jealous, the most ardent and violent, the simplest and most elegant, the most unreasonable, the mostwatchful chimera of the moral world--THE VANITY OF A WOMAN!

Caroline clasps you in her arms with a saintly embrace, thanks you foryour advice, and loves you the more for it; she wishes to be beholdento you for everything, even for her intellect; she may be a dunce, but, what is better than saying fine things, she knows how to do them!But she desires also to be your pride! It is not a question of tastein dress, of elegance and beauty; she wishes to make you proud of herintelligence. You are the luckiest of men in having successfullymanaged to escape from this first dangerous pass in conjugal life. 

"We are going this evening to Madame Deschars', where they never knowwhat to do to amuse themselves; they play all sorts of forfeit gameson account of a troop of young women and girls there; you shall see!"she says. 

You are so happy at this turn of affairs, that you hum airs andcarelessly chew bits of straw and thread, while still in your shirtand drawers. You are like a hare frisking on a flowering dew-perfumedmeadow. You leave off your morning gown till the last extremity, whenbreakfast is on the table. During the day, if you meet a friend and hehappens to speak of women, you defend them; you consider womencharming, delicious, there is something divine about them. 

How often are our opinions dictated to us by the unknown events of ourlife!

You take your wife to Madame Deschars'. Madame Deschars is a motherand is exceedingly devout. You never see any newspapers at her house:she keeps watch over her daughters by three different husbands, andkeeps them all the more closely from the fact that she herself has, itis said, some little things to reproach herself with during the careerof her two former lords. At her house, no one dares risk a jest. Everything there is white and pink and perfumed with sanctity, as atthe houses of widows who are approaching the confines of their thirdyouth. It seems as if every day were Sunday there. 

You, a young husband, join the juvenile society of young women andgirls, misses and young people, in the chamber of Madame Deschars. Theserious people, politicians, whist-players, and tea-drinkers, are inthe parlor. 

In Madame Deschars' room they are playing a game which consists inhitting upon words with several meanings, to fit the answers that eachplayer is to make to the following questions:

How do you like it?

What do you do with it?

Where do you put it?

Your turn comes to guess the word, you go into the parlor, take partin a discussion, and return at the call of a smiling young lady. Theyhave selected a word that may be applied to the most enigmaticalreplies. Everybody knows that, in order to puzzle the strongest heads, the best way is to choose a very ordinary word, and to invent phrasesthat will send the parlor Oedipus a thousand leagues from each of hisprevious thoughts. 

This game is a poor substitute for lansquenet or dice, but it is notvery expensive. 

The word MAL has been made the Sphinx of this particular occasion. Every one has determined to put you off the scent. The word, amongother acceptations, has that of _mal_ [evil], a substantive thatsignifies, in aesthetics, the opposite of good; of _mal_ [pain, disease, complaint], a substantive that enters into a thousandpathological expressions; then _malle_ [a mail-bag], and finally_malle_ [a trunk], that box of various forms, covered with all kindsof skin, made of every sort of leather, with handles, that journeysrapidly, for it serves to carry travelling effects in, as a man ofDelille's school would say. 

For you, a man of some sharpness, the Sphinx displays his wiles; hespreads his wings and folds them up again; he shows you his lion'spaws, his woman's neck, his horse's loins, and his intellectual head;he shakes his sacred fillets, he strikes an attitude and runs away, hecomes and goes, and sweeps the place with his terrible equine tail; heshows his shining claws, and draws them in; he smiles, frisks, andmurmurs. He puts on the looks of a joyous child and those of a matron;he is, above all, there to make fun of you. 

You ask the group collectively, "How do you like it?"

"I like it for love's sake, " says one. 

"I like it regular, " says another. 

"I like it with a long mane. "

"I like it with a spring lock. "

"I like it unmasked. "

"I like it on horseback. "

"I like it as coming from God, " says Madame Deschars. 

"How do you like it?" you say to your wife. 

"I like it legitimate. "

This response of your wife is not understood, and sends you a journeyinto the constellated fields of the infinite, where the mind, dazzledby the multitude of creations, finds it impossible to make a choice. 

"Where do you put it?"

"In a carriage. "

"In a garret. "

"In a steamboat. "

"In the closet. "

"On a cart. "

"In prison. "

"In the ears. "

"In a shop. "

Your wife says to you last of all: "In bed. "

You were on the point of guessing it, but you know no word that fitsthis answer, Madame Deschars not being likely to have allowed anythingimproper. 

"What do you do with it?"

"I make it my sole happiness, " says your wife, after the answers ofall the rest, who have sent you spinning through a whole world oflinguistic suppositions. 

This response strikes everybody, and you especially; so you persist inseeking the meaning of it. You think of the bottle of hot water thatyour wife has put to her feet when it is cold, --of the warming pan, above all! Now of her night-cap, --of her handkerchief, --of her curlingpaper, --of the hem of her chemise, --of her embroidery, --of her flanneljacket, --of your bandanna, --of the pillow. 

In short, as the greatest pleasure of the respondents is to see theirOedipus mystified, as each word guessed by you throws them into fitsof laughter, superior men, perceiving no word that will fit all theexplanations, will sooner give it up than make three unsuccessfulattempts. According to the law of this innocent game you are condemnedto return to the parlor after leaving a forfeit; but you are soexceedingly puzzled by your wife's answers, that you ask what the wordwas. 

"Mal, " exclaims a young miss. 

You comprehend everything but your wife's replies: she has not playedthe game. Neither Madame Deschars, nor any one of the young womenunderstand. She has cheated. You revolt, there is an insurrectionamong the girls and young women. They seek and are puzzled. You wantan explanation, and every one participates in your desire. 

"In what sense did you understand the word, my dear?" you say toCaroline. 

"Why, _male_!" [male. ]

Madame Deschars bites her lips and manifests the greatest displeasure;the young women blush and drop their eyes; the little girls opentheirs, nudge each other and prick up their ears. Your feet are gluedto the carpet, and you have so much salt in your throat that youbelieve in a repetition of the event which delivered Lot from hiswife. 

You see an infernal life before you; society is out of the question. 

To remain at home with this triumphant stupidity is equivalent tocondemnation to the state's prison. 

Axiom. --Moral tortures exceed physical sufferings by all thedifference which exists between the soul and the body. 

 THE ATTENTIONS OF A WIFE. 

Among the keenest pleasures of bachelor life, every man reckons theindependence of his getting up. The fancies of the morning compensatefor the glooms of evening. A bachelor turns over and over in his bed:he is free to gape loud enough to justify apprehensions of murder, andto scream at a pitch authorizing the suspicion of joys untold. He canforget his oaths of the day before, let the fire burn upon the hearthand the candle sink to its socket, --in short, go to sleep again inspite of pressing work. He can curse the expectant boots which standholding their black mouths open at him and pricking up their ears. Hecan pretend not to see the steel hooks which glitter in a sunbeamwhich has stolen through the curtains, can disregard the sonoroussummons of the obstinate clock, can bury himself in a soft place, saying: "Yes, I was in a hurry, yesterday, but am so no longer to-day. Yesterday was a dotard. To-day is a sage: between them stands thenight which brings wisdom, the night which gives light. I ought to go, I ought to do it, I promised I would--I am weak, I know. But how can Iresist the downy creases of my bed? My feet feel flaccid, I think Imust be sick, I am too happy just here. I long to see the etherealhorizon of my dreams again, those women without claws, those wingedbeings and their obliging ways. In short, I have found the grain ofsalt to put upon the tail of that bird that was always flying away:the coquette's feet are caught in the line. I have her now--"

Your servant, meantime, reads your newspaper, half-opens your letters, and leaves you to yourself. And you go to sleep again, lulled by therumbling of the morning wagons. Those terrible, vexatious, quiveringteams, laden with meat, those trucks with big tin teats bursting withmilk, though they make a clatter most infernal and even crush thepaving stones, seem to you to glide over cotton, and vaguely remindyou of the orchestra of Napoleon Musard. Though your house trembles inall its timbers and shakes upon its keel, you think yourself a sailorcradled by a zephyr. 

You alone have the right to bring these joys to an end by throwingaway your night-cap as you twist up your napkin after dinner, and bysitting up in bed. Then you take yourself to task with such reproachesas these: "Ah, mercy on me, I must get up!" "Early to bed and early torise, makes a man healthy--!" "Get up, lazy bones!"

All this time you remain perfectly tranquil. You look round yourchamber, you collect your wits together. Finally, you emerge from thebed, spontaneously! Courageously! of your own accord! You go to thefireplace, you consult the most obliging of timepieces, you utterhopeful sentences thus couched: "Whatshisname is a lazy creature, Iguess I shall find him in. I'll run. I'll catch him if he's gone. He'ssure to wait for me. There is a quarter of an hour's grace in allappointments, even between debtor and creditor. "

You put on your boots with fury, you dress yourself as if you wereafraid of being caught half-dressed, you have the delight of being ina hurry, you call your buttons into action, you finally go out like aconqueror, whistling, brandishing your cane, pricking up your ears andbreaking into a canter. 

After all, you say to yourself, you are responsible to no one, you areyour own master!

But you, poor married man, you were stupid enough to say to your wife, "To-morrow, my dear" (sometimes she knows it two days beforehand), "Ihave got to get up early. " Unfortunate Adolphe, you have especiallyproved the importance of this appointment: "It's to--and to--and aboveall to--in short to--"

Two hours before dawn, Caroline wakes you up gently and says to yousoftly: "Adolphy dear, Adolphy love!"

"What's the matter? Fire?"

"No, go to sleep again, I've made a mistake; but the hour hand was onit, any way! It's only four, you can sleep two hours more. "

Is not telling a man, "You've only got two hours to sleep, " the samething, on a small scale, as saying to a criminal, "It's five in themorning, the ceremony will be performed at half-past seven"? Suchsleep is troubled by an idea dressed in grey and furnished with wings, which comes and flaps, like a bat, upon the windows of your brain. 

A woman in a case like this is as exact as a devil coming to claim asoul he has purchased. When the clock strikes five, your wife's voice, too well known, alas! resounds in your ear; she accompanies thestroke, and says with an atrocious calmness, "Adolphe, it's fiveo'clock, get up, dear. "

"Ye-e-e-s, ah-h-h-h!"

"Adolphe, you'll be late for your business, you said so yourself. "

"Ah-h-h-h, ye-e-e-e-s. " You turn over in despair. 

"Come, come, love. I got everything ready last night; now you must, mydear; do you want to miss him? There, up, I say; it's broad daylight. "

Caroline throws off the blankets and gets up: she wants to show youthat _she_ can rise without making a fuss. She opens the blinds, shelets in the sun, the morning air, the noise of the street, and thencomes back. 

"Why, Adolphe, you _must_ get up! Who ever would have supposed you hadno energy! But it's just like you men! I am only a poor, weak woman, but when I say a thing, I do it. "

You get up grumbling, execrating the sacrament of marriage. There isnot the slightest merit in your heroism; it wasn't you, but your wife, that got up. Caroline gets you everything you want with provokingpromptitude; she foresees everything, she gives you a muffler inwinter, a blue-striped cambric shirt in summer, she treats you like achild; you are still asleep, she dresses you and has all the trouble. She finally thrusts you out of doors. Without her nothing would gostraight! She calls you back to give you a paper, a pocketbook, youhad forgotten. You don't think of anything, she thinks of everything!

You return five hours afterwards to breakfast, between eleven andnoon. The chambermaid is at the door, or on the stairs, or on thelanding, talking with somebody's valet: she runs in on hearing orseeing you. Your servant is laying the cloth in a most leisurelystyle, stopping to look out of the window or to lounge, and coming andgoing like a person who knows he has plenty of time. You ask for yourwife, supposing that she is up and dressed. 

"Madame is still in bed, " says the maid. 

You find your wife languid, lazy, tired and asleep. She had been awakeall night to wake you in the morning, so she went to bed again, and isquite hungry now. 

You are the cause of all these disarrangements. If breakfast is notready, she says it's because you went out. If she is not dressed, andif everything is in disorder, it's all your fault. For everythingwhich goes awry she has this answer: "Well, you would get up soearly!" "He would get up so early!" is the universal reason. She makesyou go to bed early, because you got up early. She can do nothing allday, because you would get up so unusually early. 

Eighteen months afterwards, she still maintains, "Without me, youwould never get up!" To her friends she says, "My husband get up! Ifit weren't for me, he never _would_ get up!"

To this a man whose hair is beginning to whiten, replies, "A gracefulcompliment to you, madame!" This slightly indelicate comment puts anend to her boasts. 

This petty trouble, repeated several times, teaches you to live alonein the bosom of your family, not to tell all you know, and to have noconfidant but yourself: and it often seems to you a question whetherthe inconveniences of the married state do not exceed its advantages. 

 SMALL VEXATIONS. 

You have made a transition from the frolicsome allegretto of thebachelor to the heavy andante of the father of a family. 

Instead of that fine English steed prancing and snorting between thepolished shafts of a tilbury as light as your own heart, and movinghis glistening croup under the quadruple network of the reins andribbons that you so skillfully manage with what grace and elegance theChamps Elysees can bear witness--you drive a good solid Norman horsewith a steady, family gait. 

You have learned what paternal patience is, and you let no opportunityslip of proving it. Your countenance, therefore, is serious. 

By your side is a domestic, evidently for two purposes like thecarriage. The vehicle is four-wheeled and hung upon English springs:it is corpulent and resembles a Rouen scow: it has glass windows, andan infinity of economical arrangements. It is a barouche in fineweather, and a brougham when it rains. It is apparently light, but, when six persons are in it, it is heavy and tires out your only horse. 

On the back seat, spread out like flowers, is your young wife in fullbloom, with her mother, a big marshmallow with a great many leaves. These two flowers of the female species twitteringly talk of you, though the noise of the wheels and your attention to the horse, joinedto your fatherly caution, prevent you from hearing what they say. 

On the front seat, there is a nice tidy nurse holding a little girl inher lap: by her side is a boy in a red plaited shirt, who iscontinually leaning out of the carriage and climbing upon thecushions, and who has a thousand times drawn down upon himself thosedeclarations of every mother, which he knows to be threats and nothingelse: "Be a good boy, Adolphe, or else--" "I declare I'll never bringyou again, so there!"

His mamma is secretly tired to death of this noisy little boy: he hasprovoked her twenty times, and twenty times the face of the littlegirl asleep has calmed her. 

"I am his mother, " she says to herself. And so she finally manages tokeep her little Adolphe quiet. 

You have put your triumphant idea of taking your family to ride intoexecution. You left your home in the morning, all the oppositeneighbors having come to their windows, envying you the privilegewhich your means give you of going to the country and coming backagain without undergoing the miseries of a public conveyance. So youhave dragged your unfortunate Norman horse through Paris to Vincennes, from Vincennes to Saint Maur, from Saint Maur to Charenton, fromCharenton opposite some island or other which struck your wife andmother-in-law as being prettier than all the landscapes through whichyou had driven them. 

"Let's go to Maison's!" somebody exclaims. 

So you go to Maison's, near Alfort. You come home by the left bank ofthe Seine, in the midst of a cloud of very black Olympian dust. Thehorse drags your family wearily along. But alas! your pride has fled, and you look without emotion upon his sunken flanks, and upon twobones which stick out on each side of his belly. His coat is roughenedby the sweat which has repeatedly come out and dried upon him, andwhich, no less than the dust, has made him gummy, sticky and shaggy. The horse looks like a wrathy porcupine: you are afraid he will befoundered, and you caress him with the whip-lash in a melancholy waythat he perfectly understands, for he moves his head about like anomnibus horse, tired of his deplorable existence. 

You think a good deal of this horse; your consider him an excellentone and he cost you twelve hundred francs. When a man has the honor ofbeing the father of a family, he thinks as much of twelve hundredfrancs as you think of this horse. You see at once the frightfulamount of your extra expenses, in case Coco should have to lie by. Fortwo days you will have to take hackney coaches to go to your business. You wife will pout if she can't go out: but she will go out, and takea carriage. The horse will cause the purchase of numerous extras, which you will find in your coachman's bill, --your only coachman, amodel coachman, whom you watch as you do a model anybody. 

To these thoughts you give expression in the gentle movement of thewhip as it falls upon the animal's ribs, up to his knees in the blackdust which lines the road in front of La Verrerie. 

At this moment, little Adolphe, who doesn't know what to do in thisrolling box, has sadly twisted himself up into a corner, and hisgrandmother anxiously asks him, "What is the matter?"

"I'm hungry, " says the child. 

"He's hungry, " says the mother to her daughter. 

"And why shouldn't he be hungry? It is half-past five, we are not atthe barrier, and we started at two!"

"Your husband might have treated us to dinner in the country. "

"He'd rather make his horse go a couple of leagues further, and getback to the house. "

"The cook might have had the day to herself. But Adolphe is right, after all: it's cheaper to dine at home, " adds the mother-in-law. 

"Adolphe, " exclaims your wife, stimulated by the word "cheaper, " "wego so slow that I shall be seasick, and you keep driving right in thisnasty dust. What are you thinking of? My gown and hat will be ruined!"

"Would you rather ruin the horse?" you ask, with the air of a man whocan't be answered. 

"Oh, no matter for your horse; just think of your son who is dying ofhunger: he hasn't tasted a thing for seven hours. Whip up your oldhorse! One would really think you cared more for your nag than foryour child!"

You dare not give your horse a single crack with the whip, for hemight still have vigor enough left to break into a gallop and runaway. 

"No, Adolphe tries to vex me, he's going slower, " says the young wifeto her mother. "My dear, go as slow as you like. But I know you'll sayI am extravagant when you see me buying another hat. "

Upon this you utter a series of remarks which are lost in the racketmade by the wheels. 

"What's the use of replying with reasons that haven't got an ounce ofcommon-sense?" cries Caroline. 

You talk, turning your face to the carriage and then turning back tothe horse, to avoid an accident. 

"That's right, run against somebody and tip us over, do, you'll be ridof us. Adolphe, your son is dying of hunger. See how pale he is!"

"But Caroline, " puts in the mother-in-law, "he's doing the best hecan. "

Nothing annoys you so much as to have your mother-in-law take yourpart. She is a hypocrite and is delighted to see you quarreling withher daughter. Gently and with infinite precaution she throws oil onthe fire. 

When you arrive at the barrier, your wife is mute. She says not aword, she sits with her arms crossed, and will not look at you. Youhave neither soul, heart, nor sentiment. No one but you could haveinvented such a party of pleasure. If you are unfortunate enough toremind Caroline that it was she who insisted on the excursion, thatmorning, for her children's sake, and in behalf of her milk--shenurses the baby--you will be overwhelmed by an avalanche of frigid andstinging reproaches. 

You bear it all so as "not to turn the milk of a nursing mother, forwhose sake you must overlook some little things, " so your atrociousmother-in-law whispers in your ear. 

All the furies of Orestes are rankling in your heart. 

In reply to the sacramental words pronounced by the officer of thecustoms, "Have you anything to declare?" your wife says, "I declare agreat deal of ill-humor and dust. "

She laughs, the officer laughs, and you feel a desire to tip yourfamily into the Seine. 

Unluckily for you, you suddenly remember the joyous and perverse youngwoman who wore a pink bonnet and who made merry in your tilbury sixyears before, as you passed this spot on your way to the chop-house onthe river's bank. What a reminiscence! Was Madame Schontz anxiousabout babies, about her bonnet, the lace of which was torn to piecesin the bushes? No, she had no care for anything whatever, not even forher dignity, for she shocked the rustic police of Vincennes by thesomewhat daring freedom of her style of dancing. 

You return home, you have frantically hurried your Norman horse, andhave neither prevented an indisposition of the animal, nor anindisposition of your wife. 

That evening, Caroline has very little milk. If the baby cries and ifyour head is split in consequence, it is all your fault, as youpreferred the health of your horse to that of your son who was dyingof hunger, and of your daughter whose supper has disappeared in adiscussion in which your wife was right, _as she always is_. 

"Well, well, " she says, "men are not mothers!"

As you leave the chamber, you hear your mother-in-law consoling herdaughter by these terrible words: "Come, be calm, Caroline: that's theway with them all: they are a selfish lot: your father was just likethat!"

 THE ULTIMATUM. 

It is eight o'clock; you make your appearance in the bedroom of yourwife. There is a brilliant light. The chambermaid and the cook hoverlightly about. The furniture is covered with dresses and flowers triedon and laid aside. 

The hair-dresser is there, an artist par excellence, a sovereignauthority, at once nobody and everything. You hear the other domesticsgoing and coming: orders are given and recalled, errands are well orill performed. The disorder is at its height. This chamber is a studiofrom whence to issue a parlor Venus. 

Your wife desires to be the fairest at the ball which you are toattend. Is it still for your sake, or only for herself, or is it forsomebody else? Serious questions these. 

The idea does not even occur to you. 

You are squeezed, hampered, harnessed in your ball accoutrement: youcount your steps as you walk, you look around, you observe, youcontemplate talking business on neutral ground with a stock-broker, anotary or a banker, to whom you would not like to give an advantageover you by calling at their house. 

A singular fact which all have probably observed, but the causes ofwhich can hardly be determined, is the peculiar repugnance which mendressed and ready to go to a party have for discussions or to answerquestions. At the moment of starting, there are few husbands who arenot taciturn and profoundly absorbed in reflections which vary withtheir characters. Those who reply give curt and peremptory answers. 

But women, at this time, are exceedingly aggravating. They consultyou, they ask your advice upon the best way of concealing the stem ofa rose, of giving a graceful fall to a bunch of briar, or a happy turnto a scarf. As a neat English expression has it, "they fish forcompliments, " and sometimes for better than compliments. 

A boy just out of school would discern the motive concealed behind thewillows of these pretexts: but your wife is so well known to you, andyou have so often playfully joked upon her moral and physicalperfections, that you are harsh enough to give your opinion brieflyand conscientiously: you thus force Caroline to put that decisivequestion, so cruel to women, even those who have been married twentyyears:

"So I don't suit you then?"

Drawn upon the true ground by this inquiry, you bestow upon her suchlittle compliments as you can spare and which are, as it were, thesmall change, the sous, the liards of your purse. 

"The best gown you ever wore!" "I never saw you so well dressed. ""Blue, pink, yellow, cherry [take your pick], becomes you charmingly. ""Your head-dress is quite original. " "As you go in, every one willadmire you. " "You will not only be the prettiest, but the bestdressed. " "They'll all be mad not to have your taste. " "Beauty is anatural gift: taste is like intelligence, a thing that we may be proudof. "

"Do you think so? Are you in earnest, Adolphe?"

Your wife is coquetting with you. She chooses this moment to forcefrom you your pretended opinion of one and another of her friends, andto insinuate the price of the articles of her dress you so muchadmire. Nothing is too dear to please you. She sends the cook out ofthe room. 

"Let's go, " you say. 

She sends the chambermaid out after having dismissed the hair-dresser, and begins to turn round and round before her glass, showing off toyou her most glorious beauties. 

"Let's go, " you say. 

"You are in a hurry, " she returns. 

And she goes on exhibiting herself with all her little airs, settingherself off like a fine peach magnificently exhibited in a fruiterer'swindow. But since you have dined rather heartily, you kiss her uponthe forehead merely, not feeling able to countersign your opinions. Caroline becomes serious. 

The carriage waits. All the household looks at Caroline as she goesout: she is the masterpiece to which all have contributed, andeverybody admires the common work. 

Your wife departs highly satisfied with herself, but a good dealdispleased with you. She proceeds loftily to the ball, just as apicture, caressed by the painter and minutely retouched in the studio, is sent to the annual exhibition in the vast bazaar of the Louvre. Your wife, alas! sees fifty women handsomer than herself: they haveinvented dresses of the most extravagant price, and more or lessoriginal: and that which happens at the Louvre to the masterpiece, happens to the object of feminine labor: your wife's dress seems paleby the side of another very much like it, but the livelier color ofwhich crushes it. Caroline is nobody, and is hardly noticed. Whenthere are sixty handsome women in a room, the sentiment of beauty islost, beauty is no longer appreciated. Your wife becomes a veryordinary affair. The petty stratagem of her smile, made perfect bypractice, has no meaning in the midst of countenances of nobleexpression, of self-possessed women of lofty presence. She iscompletely put down, and no one asks her to dance. She tries to forcean expression of pretended satisfaction, but, as she is not satisfied, she hears people say, "Madame Adolphe is looking very ill to-night. "Women hypocritically ask her if she is indisposed and "Why don't youdance?" They have a whole catalogue of malicious remarks veneered withsympathy and electroplated with charity, enough to damn a saint, tomake a monkey serious, and to give the devil the shudders. 

You, who are innocently playing cards or walking backwards andforwards, and so have not seen one of the thousand pin-pricks withwhich your wife's self-love has been tattooed, you come and ask her ina whisper, "What is the matter?"

"Order _my_ carriage!"

This _my_ is the consummation of marriage. For two years she has said"_my husband's_ carriage, " "_the_ carriage, " "_our_ carriage, " and nowshe says "_my_ carriage. "

You are in the midst of a game, you say, somebody wants his revenge, or you must get your money back. 

Here, Adolphe, we allow that you have sufficient strength of mind tosay yes, to disappear, and _not_ to order the carriage. 

You have a friend, you send him to dance with your wife, for you havecommenced a system of concessions which will ruin you. You alreadydimly perceive the advantage of a friend. 

Finally, you order the carriage. You wife gets in with concentratedrage, she hurls herself into a corner, covers her face with her hood, crosses her arms under her pelisse, and says not a word. 

O husbands! Learn this fact; you may, at this fatal moment, repair andredeem everything: and never does the impetuosity of lovers who havebeen caressing each other the whole evening with flaming gaze fail todo it! Yes, you can bring her home in triumph, she has now nobody butyou, you have one more chance, that of taking your wife by storm! Butno, idiot, stupid and indifferent that you are, you ask her, "What isthe matter?"

Axiom. --A husband should always know what is the matter with his wife, for she always knows what is not. 

"I'm cold, " she says. 

"The ball was splendid. "

"Pooh! nobody of distinction! People have the mania, nowadays, toinvite all Paris into a hole. There were women even on the stairs:their gowns were horribly smashed, and mine is ruined. "

"We had a good time. "

"Ah, you men, you play and that's the whole of it. Once married, youcare about as much for your wives as a lion does for the fine arts. "

"How changed you are; you were so gay, so happy, so charming when wearrived. "

"Oh, you never understand us women. I begged you to go home, and youleft me there, as if a woman ever did anything without a reason. Youare not without intelligence, but now and then you are so queer Idon't know what you are thinking about. "

Once upon this footing, the quarrel becomes more bitter. When you giveyour wife your hand to lift her from the carriage, you grasp a womanof wood: she gives you a "thank you" which puts you in the same rankas her servant. You understood your wife no better before than you doafter the ball: you find it difficult to follow her, for instead ofgoing up stairs, she flies up. The rupture is complete. 

The chambermaid is involved in your disgrace: she is received withblunt No's and Yes's, as dry as Brussells rusks, which she swallowswith a slanting glance at you. "Monsieur's always doing these things, "she mutters. 

You alone might have changed Madame's temper. She goes to bed; she hasher revenge to take: you did not comprehend her. Now she does notcomprehend you. She deposits herself on her side of the bed in themost hostile and offensive posture: she is wrapped up in her chemise, in her sack, in her night-cap, like a bale of clocks packed for theEast Indies. She says neither good-night, nor good-day, nor dear, norAdolphe: you don't exist, you are a bag of wheat. 

Your Caroline, so enticing five hours before in this very chamberwhere she frisked about like an eel, is now a junk of lead. Were youthe Tropical Zone in person, astride of the Equator, you could notmelt the ice of this little personified Switzerland that pretends tobe asleep, and who could freeze you from head to foot, if she liked. Ask her one hundred times what is the matter with her, Switzerlandreplies by an ultimatum, like the Diet or the Conference of London. 

Nothing is the matter with her: she is tired: she is going to sleep. 

The more you insist, the more she erects bastions of ignorance, themore she isolates herself by chevaux-de-frise. If you get impatient, Caroline begins to dream! You grumble, you are lost. 

Axiom. --Inasmuch as women are always willing and able to explain theirstrong points, they leave us to guess at their weak ones. 

Caroline will perhaps also condescend to assure you that she does notfeel well. But she laughs in her night-cap when you have fallenasleep, and hurls imprecations upon your slumbering body. 

 WOMEN'S LOGIC. 

You imagine you have married a creature endowed with reason: you arewoefully mistaken, my friend. 

Axiom. --Sensitive beings are not sensible beings. 

Sentiment is not argument, reason is not pleasure, and pleasure iscertainly not a reason. 

"Oh! sir!" she says. 

Reply "Ah! yes! Ah!" You must bring forth this "ah!" from the verydepths of your thoracic cavern, as you rush in a rage from the house, or return, confounded, to your study. 

Why? Now? Who has conquered, killed, overthrown you! Your wife'slogic, which is not the logic of Aristotle, nor that of Ramus, northat of Kant, nor that of Condillac, nor that of Robespierre, nor thatof Napoleon: but which partakes of the character of all these logics, and which we must call the universal logic of women, the logic ofEnglish women as it is that of Italian women, of the women of Normandyand Brittany (ah, these last are unsurpassed!), of the women of Paris, in short, that of the women in the moon, if there are women in thatnocturnal land, with which the women of the earth have an evidentunderstanding, angels that they are!

The discussion began after breakfast. Discussions can never take placein a household save at this hour. A man could hardly have a discussionwith his wife in bed, even if he wanted to: she has too manyadvantages over him, and can too easily reduce him to silence. Onleaving the nuptial chamber with a pretty woman in it, a man is apt tobe hungry, if he is young. Breakfast is usually a cheerful meal, andcheerfulness is not given to argument. In short, you do not open thebusiness till you have had your tea or your coffee. 

You have taken it into your head, for instance, to send your son toschool. All fathers are hypocrites and are never willing to confessthat their own flesh and blood is very troublesome when it walks abouton two legs, lays its dare-devil hands on everything, and iseverywhere at once like a frisky pollywog. Your son barks, mews, andsings; he breaks, smashes and soils the furniture, and furniture isdear; he makes toys of everything, he scatters your papers, and hecuts paper dolls out of the morning's newspaper before you have readit. 

His mother says to him, referring to anything of yours: "Take it!" butin reference to anything of hers she says: "Take care!"

She cunningly lets him have your things that she may be left in peace. Her bad faith as a good mother seeks shelter behind her child, yourson is her accomplice. Both are leagued against you like RobertMacaire and Bertrand against the subscribers to their joint stockcompany. The boy is an axe with which foraging excursions areperformed in your domains. He goes either boldly or slyly to maraud inyour wardrobe: he reappears caparisoned in the drawers you laid asidethat morning, and brings to the light of day many articles condemnedto solitary confinement. He brings the elegant Madame Fischtaminel, afriend whose good graces you cultivate, your girdle for checkingcorpulency, bits of cosmetic for dyeing your moustache, old waistcoatsdiscolored at the arm-holes, stockings slightly soiled at the heelsand somewhat yellow at the toes. It is quite impossible to remark thatthese stains are caused by the leather!

Your wife looks at your friend and laughs; you dare not be angry, soyou laugh too, but what a laugh! The unfortunate all know that laugh. 

Your son, moreover, gives you a cold sweat, if your razors happen tobe out of their place. If you are angry, the little rebel laughs andshows his two rows of pearls: if you scold him, he cries. His motherrushes in! And what a mother she is! A mother who will detest you ifyou don't give him the razor! With women there is no middle ground; aman is either a monster or a model. 

At certain times you perfectly understand Herod and his famous decreesrelative to the Massacre of the Innocents, which have only beensurpassed by those of the good Charles X!

Your wife has returned to her sofa, you walk up and down, and stop, and you boldly introduce the subject by this interjectional remark:

"Caroline, we must send Charles to boarding school. "

"Charles cannot go to boarding school, " she returns in a mild tone. 

"Charles is six years old, the age at which a boy's education begins. "

"In the first place, " she replies, "it begins at seven. The royalprinces are handed over to their governor by their governess when theyare seven. That's the law and the prophets. I don't see why youshouldn't apply to the children of private people the rule laid downfor the children of princes. Is your son more forward than theirs? Theking of Rome--"

"The king of Rome is not a case in point. "

"What! Is not the king of Rome the son of the Emperor? [Here shechanges the subject. ] Well, I declare, you accuse the Empress, do you?Why, Doctor Dubois himself was present, besides--"

"I said nothing of the kind. "

"How you do interrupt, Adolphe. "

"I say that the king of Rome [here you begin to raise your voice], theking of Rome, who was hardly four years old when he left France, is noexample for us. "

"That doesn't prevent the fact of the Duke de Bordeaux's having beenplaced in the hands of the Duke de Riviere, his tutor, at sevenyears. " [Logic. ]

"The case of the young Duke of Bordeaux is different. "

"Then you confess that a boy can't be sent to school before he isseven years old?" she says with emphasis. [More logic. ]

"No, my dear, I don't confess that at all. There is a great deal ofdifference between private and public education. "

"That's precisely why I don't want to send Charles to school yet. Heought to be much stronger than he is, to go there. "

"Charles is very strong for his age. "

"Charles? That's the way with men! Why, Charles has a very weakconstitution; he takes after you. [Here she changes from _tu_ to_vous_. ] But if you are determined to get rid of your son, why put himout to board, of course. I have noticed for some time that the dearchild annoys you. "

"Annoys me? The idea! But we are answerable for our children, are wenot? It is time Charles' education was began: he is getting very badhabits here, he obeys no one, he thinks himself perfectly free to doas he likes, he hits everybody and nobody dares to hit him back. Heought to be placed in the midst of his equals, or he will grow up withthe most detestable temper. "

"Thank you: so I am bringing Charles up badly!"

"I did not say that: but you will always have excellent reasons forkeeping him at home. "

Here the _vous_ becomes reciprocal and the discussion takes a bitterturn on both sides. Your wife is very willing to wound you by saying_vous_, but she feels cross when it becomes mutual. 

"The long and the short of it is that you want to get my child away, you find that he is between us, you are jealous of your son, you wantto tyrannize over me at your ease, and you sacrifice your boy! Oh, Iam smart enough to see through you!"

"You make me out like Abraham with his knife! One would think therewere no such things as schools! So the schools are empty; nobody sendstheir children to school!"

"You are trying to make me appear ridiculous, " she retorts. "I knowthat there are schools well enough, but people don't send boys of sixthere, and Charles shall not start now. "

"Don't get angry, my dear. "

"As if I ever get angry! I am a woman and know how to suffer insilence. "

"Come, let us reason together. "

"You have talked nonsense enough. "

"It is time that Charles should learn to read and write; later inlife, he will find difficulties sufficient to disgust him. "

Here, you talk for ten minutes without interruption, and you closewith an appealing "Well?" armed with an intonation which suggests aninterrogation point of the most crooked kind. 

"Well!" she replies, "it is not yet time for Charles to go to school. "

You have gained nothing at all. 

"But, my dear, Monsieur Deschars certainly sent his little Julius toschool at six years. Go and examine the schools and you will find lotsof little boys of six there. "

You talk for ten minutes more without the slightest interruption, andthen you ejaculate another "Well?"

"Little Julius Deschars came home with chilblains, " she says. 

"But Charles has chilblains here. "

"Never, " she replies, proudly. 

In a quarter of an hour, the main question is blocked by a sidediscussion on this point: "Has Charles had chilblains or not?"

You bandy contradictory allegations; you no longer believe each other;you must appeal to a third party. 

Axiom. --Every household has its Court of Appeals which takes no noticeof the merits, but judges matters of form only. 

The nurse is sent for. She comes, and decides in favor of your wife. It is fully decided that Charles has never had chilblains. 

Caroline glances triumphantly at you and utters these monstrous words:"There, you see Charles can't possibly go to school!"

You go out breathless with rage. There is no earthly means ofconvincing your wife that there is not the slightest reason for yourson's not going to school in the fact that he has never hadchilblains. 

That evening, after dinner, you hear this atrocious creature finishinga long conversation with a woman with these words: "He wanted to sendCharles to school, but I made him see that he would have to wait. "

Some husbands, at a conjuncture like this, burst out before everybody;their wives take their revenge six weeks later, but the husbands gainthis by it, that Charles is sent to school the very day he gets intoany mischief. Other husbands break the crockery, and keep their rageto themselves. The knowing ones say nothing and bide their time. 

A woman's logic is exhibited in this way upon the slightest occasion, about a promenade or the proper place to put a sofa. This logic isextremely simple, inasmuch as it consists in never expressing but oneidea, that which contains the expression of their will. Likeeverything pertaining to female nature, this system may be resolvedinto two algebraic terms--Yes: no. There are also certain littlemovements of the head which mean so much that they may take the placeof either. 

 THE JESUITISM OF WOMEN. 

The most jesuitical Jesuit of Jesuits is yet a thousand times lessjesuitical than the least jesuitical woman, --so you may judge whatJesuits women are! They are so jesuitical that the cunningest Jesuithimself could never guess to what extent of jesuitism a woman may go, for there are a thousand ways of being jesuitical, and a woman is suchan adroit Jesuit, that she has the knack of being a Jesuit withouthaving a jesuitical look. You can rarely, though you can sometimes, prove to a Jesuit that he is one: but try once to demonstrate to awoman that she acts or talks like a Jesuit. She would be cut to piecesrather than confess herself one. 

She, a Jesuit! The very soul of honor and loyalty! She a Jesuit! Whatdo you mean by "Jesuit?" She does not know what a Jesuit is: what is aJesuit? She has never seen or heard of a Jesuit! It's you who are aJesuit! And she proves with jesuitical demonstration that you are asubtle Jesuit. 

Here is one of the thousand examples of a woman's jesuitism, and thisexample constitutes the most terrible of the petty troubles of marriedlife; it is perhaps the most serious. 

Induced by a desire the thousandth time expressed by Caroline, whocomplained that she had to go on foot or that she could not buy a newhat, a new parasol, a new dress, or any other article of dress, oftenenough:

That she could not dress her baby as a sailor, as a lancer, as anartilleryman of the National Guard, as a Highlander with naked legsand a cap and feather, in a jacket, in a roundabout, in a velvet sack, in boots, in trousers: that she could not buy him toys enough, normechanical moving mice and Noah's Arks enough:

That she could not return Madame Deschars or Madame de Fischtamineltheir civilities, a ball, a party, a dinner: nor take a private box atthe theatre, thus avoiding the necessity of sitting cheek by jowl withmen who are either too polite or not enough so, and of calling a cabat the close of the performance; apropos of which she thus discourses:

"You think it cheaper, but you are mistaken: men are all the same! Isoil my shoes, I spoil my hat, my shawl gets wet and my silk stockingsget muddy. You economize twenty francs by not having a carriage, --nonot twenty, sixteen, for your pay four for the cab--and you lose fiftyfrancs' worth of dress, besides being wounded in your pride on seeinga faded bonnet on my head: you don't see why it's faded, but it'sthose horrid cabs. I say nothing of the annoyance of being tumbled andjostled by a crowd of men, for it seems you don't care for that!"

That she could not buy a piano instead of hiring one, nor keep up withthe fashions; (there are some women, she says, who have all the newstyles, but just think what they give in return! She would ratherthrow herself out of the window than imitate them! She loves you toomuch. Here she sheds tears. She does not understand such women). Thatshe could not ride in the Champs Elysees, stretched out in her owncarriage, like Madame de Fischtaminel. (There's a woman whounderstands life: and who has a well-taught, well-disciplined and verycontented husband: his wife would go through fire and water for him!)

Finally, beaten in a thousand conjugal scenes, beaten by the mostlogical arguments (the late logicians Tripier and Merlin were nothingto her, as the preceding chapter has sufficiently shown you), beatenby the most tender caresses, by tears, by your own words turnedagainst you, for under circumstances like these, a woman lies in waitin her house like a jaguar in the jungle; she does not appear tolisten to you, or to heed you; but if a single word, a wish, agesture, escapes you, she arms herself with it, she whets it to anedge, she brings it to bear upon you a hundred times over; beaten bysuch graceful tricks as "If you will do so and so, I will do this andthat;" for women, in these cases, become greater bargainers than theJews and Greeks (those, I mean, who sell perfumes and little girls), than the Arabs (those, I mean, who sell little boys and horses), greater higglers than the Swiss and the Genevese, than bankers, and, what is worse than all, than the Genoese!

Finally, beaten in a manner which may be called beaten, you determineto risk a certain portion of your capital in a business undertaking. One evening, at twilight, seated side by side, or some morning onawakening, while Caroline, half asleep, a pink bud in her white linen, her face smiling in her lace, is beside you, you say to her, "You wantthis, you say, or you want that: you told me this or you told methat:" in short, you hastily enumerate the numberless fancies by whichshe has over and over again broken your heart, for there is nothingmore dreadful than to be unable to satisfy the desires of a belovedwife, and you close with these words:

"Well, my dear, an opportunity offers of quintupling a hundredthousand francs, and I have decided to make the venture. "

She is wide awake now, she sits up in bed, and gives you a kiss, ah!this time, a real good one!

"You are a dear boy!" is her first word. 

We will not mention her last, for it is an enormous andunpronounceable onomatope. 

"Now, " she says, "tell me all about it. "

You try to explain the nature of the affair. But in the first place, women do not understand business, and in the next they do not wish toseem to understand it. Your dear, delighted Caroline says you werewrong to take her desires, her groans, her sighs for new dresses, inearnest. She is afraid of your venture, she is frightened at thedirectors, the shares, and above all at the running expenses, anddoesn't exactly see where the dividend comes in. 

Axiom. --Women are always afraid of things that have to be divided. 

In short, Caroline suspects a trap: but she is delighted to know thatshe can have her carriage, her box, the numerous styles of dress forher baby, and the rest. While dissuading you from engaging in thespeculation, she is visibly glad to see you investing your money init. 

FIRST PERIOD. --"Oh, I am the happiest woman on the face of the earth!Adolphe has just gone into the most splendid venture. I am going tohave a carriage, oh! ever so much handsomer than Madame deFischtaminel's; hers is out of fashion. Mine will have curtains withfringes. My horses will be mouse-colored, hers are bay, --they are ascommon as coppers. "

"What is this venture, madame?"

"Oh, it's splendid--the stock is going up; he explained it to mebefore he went into it, for Adolphe never does anything withoutconsulting me. "

"You are very fortunate. "

"Marriage would be intolerable without entire confidence, and Adolphetells me everything. "

Thus, Adolphe, you are the best husband in Paris, you are adorable, you are a man of genius, you are all heart, an angel. You are pettedto an uncomfortable degree. You bless the marriage tie. Carolineextols men, calling them "kings of creation, " women were made forthem, man is naturally generous, and matrimony is a delightfulinstitution. 

For three, sometimes six, months, Caroline executes the most brilliantconcertos and solos upon this delicious theme: "I shall be rich! Ishall have a thousand a month for my dress: I am going to keep mycarriage!"

If your son is alluded to, it is merely to ask about the school towhich he shall be sent. 

SECOND PERIOD. --"Well, dear, how is your business getting on?--Whathas become of it?--How about that speculation which was to give me acarriage, and other things?--It is high time that affair should cometo something. --It is a good while cooking. --When _will_ it begin topay? Is the stock going up?--There's nobody like you for hitting uponventures that never amount to anything. "

One day she says to you, "Is there really an affair?"

If you mention it eight or ten months after, she returns:

"Ah! Then there really _is_ an affair!"

This woman, whom you thought dull, begins to show signs ofextraordinary wit, when her object is to make fun of you. During thisperiod, Caroline maintains a compromising silence when people speak ofyou, or else she speaks disparagingly of men in general: "Men are notwhat they seem: to find them out you must try them. " "Marriage has itsgood and its bad points. " "Men never can finish anything. "

THIRD PERIOD. --_Catastrophe_. --This magnificent affair which was toyield five hundred per cent, in which the most cautious, the bestinformed persons took part--peers, deputies, bankers--all of themKnights of the Legion of Honor--this venture has been obliged toliquidate! The most sanguine expect to get ten per cent of theircapital back. You are discouraged. 

Caroline has often said to you, "Adolphe, what is the matter? Adolphe, there is something wrong. "

Finally, you acquaint Caroline with the fatal result: she begins byconsoling you. 

"One hundred thousand francs lost! We shall have to practice thestrictest economy, " you imprudently add. 

The jesuitism of woman bursts out at this word "economy. " It sets fireto the magazine. 

"Ah! that's what comes of speculating! How is it that _you, ordinarilyso prudent_, could go and risk a hundred thousand francs! _You know Iwas against it from the beginning!_ BUT YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN TO ME!"

Upon this, the discussion grows bitter. 

You are good for nothing--you have no business capacity; women alonetake clear views of things. You have risked your children's bread, though she tried to dissuade you from it. --You cannot say it was forher. Thank God, she has nothing to reproach herself with. A hundredtimes a month she alludes to your disaster: "If my husband had notthrown away his money in such and such a scheme, I could have had thisand that. " "The next time you want to go into an affair, perhapsyou'll consult me!" Adolphe is accused and convicted of havingfoolishly lost one hundred thousand francs, without an object in view, like a dolt, and without having consulted his wife. Caroline advisesher friends not to marry. She complains of the incapacity of men whosquander the fortunes of their wives. Caroline is vindictive, shemakes herself generally disagreeable. Pity Adolphe! Lament, yehusbands! O bachelors, rejoice and be exceeding glad!

 MEMORIES AND REGRETS. 

After several years of wedded life, your love has become so placid, that Caroline sometimes tries, in the evening, to wake you up byvarious little coquettish phrases. There is about you a certaincalmness and tranquillity which always exasperates a lawful wife. Women see in it a sort of insolence: they look upon the indifferenceof happiness as the fatuity of confidence, for of course they neverimagine their inestimable equalities can be regarded with disdain:their virtue is therefore enraged at being so cordially trusted in. 

In this situation, which is what every couple must come to, and whichboth husband and wife must expect, no husband dares confess that theconstant repetition of the same dish has become wearisome; but hisappetite certainly requires the condiments of dress, the ideas excitedby absence, the stimulus of an imaginary rivalry. 

In short, at this period, you walk very comfortably with your wife onyour arm, without pressing hers against your heart with the solicitousand watchful cohesion of a miser grasping his treasure. You gazecarelessly round upon the curiosities in the street, leading your wifein a loose and distracted way, as if you were towing a Norman scow. Come now, be frank! If, on passing your wife, an admirer were gentlyto press her, accidentally or purposely, would you have the slightestdesire to discover his motives? Besides, you say, no woman would seekto bring about a quarrel for such a trifle. Confess this, too, thatthe expression "such a trifle" is exceedingly flattering to both ofyou. 

You are in this position, but you have as yet proceeded no farther. Still, you have a horrible thought which you bury in the depths ofyour heart and conscience: Caroline has not come up to yourexpectations. Caroline has imperfections, which, during the high tidesof the honey-moon, were concealed under the water, but which the ebbof the gall-moon has laid bare. You have several times run againstthese breakers, your hopes have been often shipwrecked upon them, morethan once your desires--those of a young marrying man--(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden gondolas go to piecesthere: the flower of the cargo went to the bottom, the ballast of themarriage remained. In short, to make use of a colloquial expression, as you talk over your marriage with yourself you say, as you look atCaroline, "_She is not what I took her to be!_"

Some evening, at a ball, in society, at a friend's house, no matterwhere, you meet a sublime young woman, beautiful, intellectual andkind: with a soul, oh! a soul of celestial purity, and of miraculousbeauty! Yes, there is that unchangeable oval cut of face, thosefeatures which time will never impair, that graceful and thoughtfulbrow. The unknown is rich, well-educated, of noble birth: she willalways be what she should be, she knows when to shine, when to remainin the background: she appears in all her glory and power, the beingyou have dreamed of, your wife that should have been, she whom youfeel you could love forever. She would always have flattered yourlittle vanities, she would understand and admirably serve yourinterests. She is tender and gay, too, this young lady who reawakensall your better feelings, who rekindles your slumbering desires. 

You look at Caroline with gloomy despair, and here are thephantom-like thoughts which tap, with wings of a bat, the beak ofa vulture, the body of a death's-head moth, upon the walls of thepalace in which, enkindled by desire, glows your brain like a lampof gold:

FIRST STANZA. Ah, dear me, why did I get married? Fatal idea! Iallowed myself to be caught by a small amount of cash. And is itreally over? Cannot I have another wife? Ah, the Turks manage thingsbetter! It is plain enough that the author of the Koran lived in thedesert!

SECOND STANZA. My wife is sick, she sometimes coughs in the morning. If it is the design of Providence to remove her from the world, let itbe speedily done for her sake and for mine. The angel has lived longenough. 

THIRD STANZA. I am a monster! Caroline is the mother of my children!

You go home, that night, in a carriage with your wife: you think herperfectly horrible: she speaks to you, but you answer inmonosyllables. She says, "What is the matter?" and you answer, "Nothing. " She coughs, you advise her to see the doctor in themorning. Medicine has its hazards. 

FOURTH STANZA. I have been told that a physician, poorly paid by theheirs of his deceased patient, imprudently exclaimed, "What! they cutdown my bill, when they owe me forty thousand a year. " _I_ would nothaggle over fees!

"Caroline, " you say to her aloud, "you must take care of yourself;cross your shawl, be prudent, my darling angel. "

Your wife is delighted with you since you seem to take such aninterest in her. While she is preparing to retire, you lie stretchedout upon the sofa. You contemplate the divine apparition which opensto you the ivory portals of your castles in the air. Deliciousecstasy! 'Tis the sublime young woman that you see before you! She isas white as the sail of the treasure-laden galleon as it enters theharbor of Cadiz. Your wife, happy in your admiration, now understandsyour former taciturnity. You still see, with closed eyes, the sublimeyoung woman; she is the burden of your thoughts, and you say aloud:

FIFTH AND LAST STANZA. Divine! Adorable! Can there be another womanlike her? Rose of Night! Column of ivory! Celestial maiden! Morningand Evening Star!

Everyone says his prayers; you have said four. 

The next morning, your wife is delightful, she coughs no more, she hasno need of a doctor; if she dies, it will be of good health; youlaunched four maledictions upon her, in the name of your sublime youngwoman, and four times she blessed you for it. Caroline does not knowthat in the depths of your heart there wriggles a little red fish likea crocodile, concealed beneath conjugal love like the other would behid in a basin. 

A few days before, your wife had spoken of you in rather equivocalterms to Madame de Fischtaminel: your fair friend comes to visit her, and Caroline compromises you by a long and humid gaze; she praises youand says she never was happier. 

You rush out in a rage, you are beside yourself, and are glad to meeta friend, that you may work off your bile. 

"Don't you ever marry, George; it's better to see your heirs carryingaway your furniture while the death-rattle is in your throat, betterto go through an agony of two hours without a drop to cool yourtongue, better to be assassinated by inquiries about your will by anurse like the one in Henry Monnier's terrible picture of a'Bachelor's Last Moments!' Never marry under any pretext!"

Fortunately you see the sublime young woman no more. You are savedfrom the tortures to which a criminal passion was leading you. Youfall back again into the purgatory of your married bliss; but youbegin to be attentive to Madame de Fischtaminel, with whom you weredreadfully in love, without being able to get near her, while you werea bachelor. 

 OBSERVATIONS. 

When you have arrived at this point in the latitude or longitude ofthe matrimonial ocean, there appears a slight chronic, intermittentaffection, not unlike the toothache. Here, I see, you stop me to ask, "How are we to find the longitude in this sea? When can a husband besure he has attained this nautical point? And can the danger beavoided?"

You may arrive at this point, look you, as easily after ten months asten years of wedlock; it depends upon the speed of the vessel, itsstyle of rigging, upon the trade winds, the force of the currents, andespecially upon the composition of the crew. You have this advantageover the mariner, that he has but one method of calculating hisposition, while husbands have at least a thousand of reckoning theirs. 

EXAMPLE: Caroline, your late darling, your late treasure, who is nowmerely your humdrum wife, leans much too heavily upon your arm whilewalking on the boulevard, or else says it is much more elegant not totake your arm at all;

Or else she notices men, older or younger as the case may be, dressedwith more or less taste, whereas she formerly saw no one whatever, though the sidewalk was black with hats and traveled by more bootsthan slippers;

Or, when you come home, she says, "It's no one but my husband:"instead of saying "Ah! 'tis Adolphe!" as she used to say with agesture, a look, an accent which caused her admirers to think, "Well, here's a happy woman at last!" This last exclamation of a woman issuitable for two eras, --first, while she is sincere; second, while sheis hypocritical, with her "Ah! 'tis Adolphe!" When she exclaims, "It'sonly my husband, " she no longer deigns to play a part. 

Or, if you come home somewhat late--at eleven, or at midnight--youfind her--snoring! Odious symptom!

Or else she puts on her stockings in your presence. Among Englishcouples, this never happens but once in a lady's married life; thenext day she leaves for the Continent with some captain or other, andno longer thinks of putting on her stockings at all. 

Or else--but let us stop here. 

This is intended for the use of mariners and husbands who areweatherwise. 

 THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY. 

Very well! In this degree of longitude, not far from a tropical signupon the name of which good taste forbids us to make a jest at oncecoarse and unworthy of this thoughtful work, a horrible littleannoyance appears, ingeniously called the Matrimonial Gadfly, the mostprovoking of all gnats, mosquitoes, blood-suckers, fleas andscorpions, for no net was ever yet invented that could keep it off. The gadfly does not immediately sting you; it begins by buzzing inyour ears, and _you do not at first know what it is_. 

Thus, apropos of nothing, in the most natural way in the world, Caroline says: "Madame Deschars had a lovely dress on, yesterday. "

"She is a woman of taste, " returns Adolphe, though he is far fromthinking so. 

"Her husband gave it to her, " resumes Caroline, with a shrug of hershoulders. 

"Ah!"

"Yes, a four hundred franc dress! It's the very finest quality ofvelvet. "

"Four hundred francs!" cries Adolphe, striking the attitude of theapostle Thomas. 

"But then there are two extra breadths and enough for a high waist!"

"Monsieur Deschars does things on a grand scale, " replies Adolphe, taking refuge in a jest. 

"All men don't pay such attentions to their wives, " says Caroline, curtly. 

"What attentions?"

"Why, Adolphe, thinking of extra breadths and of a waist to make thedress good again, when it is no longer fit to be worn low in theneck. "

Adolphe says to himself, "Caroline wants a dress. "

Poor man!

Some time afterward, Monsieur Deschars furnishes his wife's chamberanew. Then he has his wife's diamonds set in the prevailing fashion. Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allowshis wife to go out without offering her his arm. 

If you bring Caroline anything, no matter what, it is never equal towhat Monsieur Deschars has done. If you allow yourself the slightestgesture or expression a little livelier than usual, if you speak alittle bit loud, you hear the hissing and viper-like remark:

"You wouldn't see Monsieur Deschars behaving like this! Why don't youtake Monsieur Deschars for a model?"

In short, this idiotic Monsieur Deschars is forever looming up in yourhousehold on every conceivable occasion. 

The expression--"Do you suppose Monsieur Deschars ever allows himself"--is a sword of Damocles, or what is worse, a Damocles pin: and yourself-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly stickingit, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety ofunforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning termsof endearment, and with the most agreeable little ways. 

Adolphe, stung till he finds himself tattooed, finally does what isdone by police authorities, by officers of government, by militarytacticians. He casts his eye on Madame de Fischtaminel, who is stillyoung, elegant and a little bit coquettish, and places her (this hadbeen the rascal's intention for some time) like a blister uponCaroline's extremely ticklish skin. 

O you, who often exclaim, "I don't know what is the matter with mywife!" you will kiss this page of transcendent philosophy, for youwill find in it _the key to every woman's character_! But as toknowing women as well as I know them, it will not be knowing themmuch; they don't know themselves! In fact, as you well know, God wasHimself mistaken in the only one that He attempted to manage and towhose manufacture He had given personal attention. 

Caroline is very willing to sting Adolphe at all hours, but thisprivilege of letting a wasp off now and then upon one's consort (thelegal term), is exclusively reserved to the wife. Adolphe is a monsterif he starts off a single fly at Caroline. On her part, it is adelicious joke, a new jest to enliven their married life, and onedictated by the purest intentions; while on Adolphe's part, it is apiece of cruelty worthy a Carib, a disregard of his wife's heart, anda deliberate plan to give her pain. But that is nothing. 

"So you are really in love with Madame de Fischtaminel?" Carolineasks. "What is there so seductive in the mind or the manners of thespider?"

"Why, Caroline--"

"Oh, don't undertake to deny your eccentric taste, " she returns, checking a negation on Adolphe's lips. "I have long seen that youprefer that Maypole [Madame de Fischtaminel is thin] to me. Very well!go on; you will soon see the difference. "

Do you understand? You cannot suspect Caroline of the slightestinclination for Monsieur Deschars, a low, fat, red-faced man, formerlya notary, while you are in love with Madame de Fischtaminel! ThenCaroline, the Caroline whose simplicity caused you such agony, Caroline who has become familiar with society, Caroline becomes acuteand witty: you have two gadflies instead of one. 

The next day she asks you, with a charming air of interest, "How areyou coming on with Madame de Fischtaminel?"

When you go out, she says: "Go and drink something calming, my dear. "For, in their anger with a rival, all women, duchesses even, will useinvectives, and even venture into the domain of Billingsgate; theymake an offensive weapon of anything and everything. 

To try to convince Caroline that she is mistaken and that you areindifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is ablunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power andspike his own guns. 

Oh! Adolphe, you have arrived unfortunately at that season soingeniously called the _Indian Summer of Marriage_. 

You must now--pleasing task!--win your wife, your Caroline, overagain, seize her by the waist again, and become the best of husbandsby trying to guess at things to please her, so as to act according toher whims instead of according to your will. This is the wholequestion henceforth. 

 HARD LABOR. 

Let us admit this, which, in our opinion, is a truism made as good asnew:

Axiom. --Most men have some of the wit required by a difficultposition, when they have not the whole of it. 

As for those husbands who are not up to their situation, it isimpossible to consider their case here: without any struggle whateverthey simply enter the numerous class of the _Resigned_. 

Adolphe says to himself: "Women are children: offer them a lump ofsugar, and you will easily get them to dance all the dances thatgreedy children dance; but you must always have a sugar plum in hand, hold it up pretty high, and--take care that their fancy for sweetmeatsdoes not leave them. Parisian women--and Caroline is one--are veryvain, and as for their voracity--don't speak of it. Now you cannotgovern men and make friends of them, unless you work upon them throughtheir vices, and flatter their passions: my wife is mine!"

Some days afterward, during which Adolphe has been unusually attentiveto his wife, he discourses to her as follows:

"Caroline, dear, suppose we have a bit of fun: you'll put on your newgown--the one like Madame Deschars!--and we'll go to see a farce atthe Varieties. "

This kind of proposition always puts a wife in the best possiblehumor. So away you go! Adolphe has ordered a dainty little dinner fortwo, at Borrel's _Rocher de Cancale_. 

"As we are going to the Varieties, suppose we dine at the tavern, "exclaims Adolphe, on the boulevard, with the air of a man suddenlystruck by a generous idea. 

Caroline, delighted with this appearance of good fortune, enters alittle parlor where she finds the cloth laid and that neat littleservice set, which Borrel places at the disposal of those who are richenough to pay for the quarters intended for the great ones of theearth, who make themselves small for an hour. 

Women eat little at a formal dinner: their concealed harness hampersthem, they are laced tightly, and they are in the presence of womenwhose eyes and whose tongues are equally to be dreaded. They preferfancy eating to good eating, then: they will suck a lobster's claw, swallow a quail or two, punish a woodcock's wing, beginning with a bitof fresh fish, flavored by one of those sauces which are the glory ofFrench cooking. France is everywhere sovereign in matters of taste: inpainting, fashions, and the like. Gravy is the triumph of taste, incookery. So that grisettes, shopkeepers' wives and duchesses aredelighted with a tasty little dinner washed down with the choicestwines, of which, however, they drink but little, the whole concludedby fruit such as can only be had at Paris; and especially delightedwhen they go to the theatre to digest the little dinner, and listen, in a comfortable box, to the nonsense uttered upon the stage, and tothat whispered in their ears to explain it. But then the bill of therestaurant is one hundred francs, the box costs thirty, the carriage, dress, gloves, bouquet, as much more. This gallantry amounts to thesum of one hundred and sixty francs, which is hard upon four thousandfrancs a month, if you go often to the Comic, the Italian, or theGrand, Opera. Four thousand francs a month is the interest of acapital of two millions. But then the honor of being a husband isfully worth the price!

Caroline tells her friends things which she thinks exceedinglyflattering, but which cause a sagacious husband to make a wry face. 

"Adolphe has been delightful for some time past. I don't know what Ihave done to deserve so much attention, but he overpowers me. He givesvalue to everything by those delicate ways which have such an effectupon us women. After taking me Monday to the _Rocher de Cancale_ todine, he declared that Very was as good a cook as Borrel, and he gaveme the little party of pleasure that I told you of all over again, presenting me at dessert with a ticket for the opera. They sang'William Tell, ' which, you know, is my craze. "

"You are lucky indeed, " returns Madame Deschars with evident jealousy. 

"Still, a wife who discharges all her duties, deserves such luck, itseems to me. "

When this terrible sentiment falls from the lips of a married woman, it is clear that she _does her duty_, after the manner of school-boys, for the reward she expects. At school, a prize is the object: inmarriage, a shawl or a piece of jewelry. No more love, then!

"As for me, "--Madame Deschars is piqued--"I am reasonable. Descharscommitted such follies once, but I put a stop to it. You see, my dear, we have two children, and I confess that one or two hundred francs arequite a consideration for me, as the mother of a family. "

"Dear me, madame, " says Madame de Fischtaminel, "it's better that ourhusbands should have cosy little times with us than with--"

"Deschars!--" suddenly puts in Madame Deschars, as she gets up andsays good-bye. 

The individual known as Deschars (a man nullified by his wife) doesnot hear the end of the sentence, by which he might have learned thata man may spend his money with other women. 

Caroline, flattered in every one of her vanities, abandons herself tothe pleasures of pride and high living, two delicious capital sins. Adolphe is gaining ground again, but alas! (this reflection is worth awhole sermon in Lent) sin, like all pleasure, contains a spur. Vice islike an Autocrat, and let a single harsh fold in a rose-leaf irritateit, it forgets a thousand charming bygone flatteries. With Vice aman's course must always be crescendo!--and forever. 

Axiom. --Vice, Courtiers, Misfortune and Love, care only for thePRESENT. 

At the end of a period of time difficult to determine, Caroline looksin the glass, at dessert, and notices two or three pimples bloomingupon her cheeks, and upon the sides, lately so pure, of her nose. Sheis out of humor at the theatre, and you do not know why, you, soproudly striking an attitude in your cravat, you, displaying yourfigure to the best advantage, as a complacent man should. 

A few days after, the dressmaker arrives. She tries on a gown, sheexerts all her strength, but cannot make the hooks and eyes meet. Thewaiting maid is called. After a two horse-power pull, a regularthirteenth labor of Hercules, a hiatus of two inches manifests itself. The inexorable dressmaker cannot conceal from Caroline the fact thather form is altered. Caroline, the aerial Caroline, threatens tobecome like Madame Deschars. In vulgar language, she is getting stout. The maid leaves her in a state of consternation. 

"What! am I to have, like that fat Madame Deschars, cascades of flesha la Rubens! That Adolphe is an awful scoundrel. Oh, I see, he wantsto make me an old mother Gigogne, and destroy my powers offascination!"

Thenceforward Caroline is willing to go to the opera, she accepts twoseats in a box, but she considers it very distingue to eat sparingly, and declines the dainty dinners of her husband. 

"My dear, " she says, "a well-bred woman should not go often to theseplaces; you may go once for a joke; but as for making a habitual thingof it--fie, for shame!"

Borrel and Very, those masters of the art, lose a thousand francs aday by not having a private entrance for carriages. If a coach couldglide under an archway, and go out by another door, after leaving itsfair occupants on the threshold of an elegant staircase, how many ofthem would bring the landlord fine, rich, solid old fellows forcustomers!

Axiom. --Vanity is the death of good living. 

Caroline very soon gets tired of the theatre, and the devil alone cantell the cause of her disgust. Pray excuse Adolphe! A husband is notthe devil. 

Fully one-third of the women of Paris are bored by the theatre. Manyof them are tired to death of music, and go to the opera for thesingers merely, or rather to notice the difference between them inpoint of execution. What supports the theatre is this: the women are aspectacle before and after the play. Vanity alone will pay theexorbitant price of forty francs for three hours of questionablepleasure, in a bad atmosphere and at great expense, without countingthe colds caught in going out. But to exhibit themselves, to see andbe seen, to be the observed of five hundred observers! What a gloriousmouthful! as Rabelais would say. 

To obtain this precious harvest, garnered by self-love, a woman mustbe looked at. Now a woman with her husband is very little looked at. Caroline is chagrined to see the audience entirely taken up with womenwho are _not_ with their husbands, with eccentric women, in short. Now, as the very slight return she gets from her efforts, her dresses, and her attitudes, does not compensate, in her eyes, for her fatigue, her display and her weariness, it is very soon the same with thetheatre as it was with the good cheer; high living made her fat, thetheatre is making her yellow. 

Here Adolphe--or any other man in Adolphe's place--resembles a certainLanguedocian peasant who suffered agonies from an agacin, or, inFrench, corn, --but the term in Lanquedoc is so much prettier, don'tyou think so? This peasant drove his foot at each step two inches intothe sharpest stones along the roadside, saying to the agacin, "Deviltake you! Make me suffer again, will you?"

"Upon my word, " says Adolphe, profoundly disappointed, the day when hereceives from his wife a refusal, "I should like very much to knowwhat would please you!"

Caroline looks loftily down upon her husband, and says, after a pauseworthy of an actress, "I am neither a Strasburg goose nor a giraffe!"

"'Tis true, I might lay out four thousand francs a month to bettereffect, " returns Adolphe. 

"What do you mean?"

"With the quarter of that sum, presented to estimable burglars, youthful jail-birds and honorable criminals, I might become somebody, a Man in the Blue Cloak on a small scale; and then a young woman isproud of her husband, " Adolphe replies. 

This answer is the grave of love, and Caroline takes it in very badpart. An explanation follows. This must be classed among the thousandpleasantries of the following chapter, the title of which ought tomake lovers smile as well as husbands. If there are yellow rays oflight, why should there not be whole days of this extremelymatrimonial color?

 FORCED SMILES. 

On your arrival in this latitude, you enjoy numerous little scenes, which, in the grand opera of marriage, represent the intermezzos, andof which the following is a type:

You are one evening alone after dinner, and you have been so oftenalone already that you feel a desire to say sharp little things toeach other, like this, for instance:

"Take care, Caroline, " says Adolphe, who has not forgotten his manyvain efforts to please her. "I think your nose has the impertinence toredden at home quite well as at the restaurant. "

"This is not one of your amiable days!"

General Rule. --No man has ever yet discovered the way to give friendlyadvice to any woman, not even to his own wife. 

"Perhaps it's because you are laced too tight. Women make themselvessick that way. "

The moment a man utters these words to a woman, no matter whom, thatwoman, --who knows that stays will bend, --seizes her corset by thelower end, and bends it out, saying, with Caroline:

"Look, you can get your hand in! I never lace tight. "

"Then it must be your stomach. "

"What has the stomach got to do with the nose?"

"The stomach is a centre which communicates with all the organs. "

"So the nose is an organ, is it?"

"Yes. "

"Your organ is doing you a poor service at this moment. " She raisesher eyes and shrugs her shoulders. "Come, Adolphe, what have I done?"

"Nothing. I'm only joking, and I am unfortunate enough not to pleaseyou, " returns Adolphe, smiling. 

"My misfortune is being your wife! Oh, why am I not somebody else's!"

"That's what _I_ say!"

"If I were, and if I had the innocence to say to you, like a coquettewho wishes to know how far she has got with a man, 'the redness of mynose really gives me anxiety, ' you would look at me in the glass withall the affectations of an ape, and would reply, 'O madame, you doyourself an injustice; in the first place, nobody sees it: besides, itharmonizes with your complexion; then again we are all so afterdinner!' and from this you would go on to flatter me. Do I ever tellyou that you are growing fat, that you are getting the color of astone-cutter, and that I prefer thin and pale men?"

They say in London, "Don't touch the axe!" In France we ought to say, "Don't touch a woman's nose. "

"And all this about a little extra natural vermilion!" exclaimsAdolphe. "Complain about it to Providence, whose office it is to put alittle more color in one place than another, not to me, who loves you, who desires you to be perfect, and who merely says to you, take care!"

"You love me too much, then, for you've been trying, for some timepast, to find disagreeable things to say to me. You want to run medown under the pretext of making me perfect--people said I _was_perfect, five years ago. "

"I think you are better than perfect, you are stunning!"

"With too much vermilion?"

Adolphe, who sees the atmosphere of the north pole upon his wife'sface, sits down upon a chair by her side. Caroline, unable decently togo away, gives her gown a sort of flip on one side, as if to produce aseparation. This motion is performed by some women with a provokingimpertinence: but it has two significations; it is, as whist playerswould say, either a signal _for trumps_ or a _renounce_. At this time, Caroline renounces. 

"What is the matter?" says Adolphe. 

"Will you have a glass of sugar and water?" asks Caroline, busyingherself about your health, and assuming the part of a servant. 

"What for?"

"You are not amiable while digesting, you must be in pain. Perhaps youwould like a drop of brandy in your sugar and water? The doctor spokeof it as an excellent remedy. "

"How anxious you are about my stomach!"

"It's a centre, it communicates with the other organs, it will actupon your heart, and through that perhaps upon your tongue. "

Adolphe gets up and walks about without saying a word, but he reflectsupon the acuteness which his wife is acquiring: he sees her dailygaining in strength and in acrimony: she is getting to display an artin vexation and a military capacity for disputation which reminds himof Charles XII and the Russians. Caroline, during this time, is busywith an alarming piece of mimicry: she looks as if she were going tofaint. 

"Are you sick?" asks Adolphe, attacked in his generosity, the placewhere women always have us. 

"It makes me sick at my stomach, after dinner, to see a man going backand forth so, like the pendulum of a clock. But it's just like you:you are always in a fuss about something. You are a queer set: all menare more or less cracked. "

Adolphe sits down by the fire opposite to his wife, and remains therepensive: marriage appears to him like an immense dreary plain, withits crop of nettles and mullen stalks. 

"What, are you pouting?" asks Caroline, after a quarter of an hour'sobservation of her husband's countenance. 

"No, I am meditating, " replied Adolphe. 

"Oh, what an infernal temper you've got!" she returns, with a shrug ofthe shoulders. "Is it for what I said about your stomach, your shapeand your digestion? Don't you see that I was only paying you back foryour vermilion? You'll make me think that men are as vain as women. [Adolphe remains frigid. ] It is really quite kind in you to take ourqualities. [Profound silence. ] I made a joke and you got angry [shelooks at Adolphe], for you are angry. I am not like you: I cannot bearthe idea of having given you pain! Nevertheless, it's an idea that aman never would have had, that of attributing your impertinence tosomething wrong in your digestion. It's not my Dolph, it's his stomachthat was bold enough to speak. I did not know you were aventriloquist, that's all. "

Caroline looks at Adolphe and smiles: Adolphe is as stiff as if hewere glued. 

"No, he won't laugh! And, in your jargon, you call this havingcharacter. Oh, how much better we are!"

She goes and sits down in Adolphe's lap, and Adolphe cannot helpsmiling. This smile, extracted as if by a steam engine, Caroline hasbeen on the watch for, in order to make a weapon of it. 

"Come, old fellow, confess that you are wrong, " she says. "Why pout?Dear me, I like you just as you are: in my eyes you are as slender aswhen I married you, and slenderer perhaps. "

"Caroline, when people get to deceive themselves in these littlematters, where one makes concessions and the other does not get angry, do you know what it means?"

"What does it mean?" asks Caroline, alarmed at Adolphe's dramaticattitude. 

"That they love each other less. "

"Oh! you monster, I understand you: you were angry so as to make mebelieve you loved me!"

Alas! let us confess it, Adolphe tells the truth in the only way hecan--by a laugh. 

"Why give me pain?" she says. "If I am wrong in anything, isn't itbetter to tell me of it kindly, than brutally to say [here she raisesher voice], 'Your nose is getting red!' No, that is not right! Toplease you, I will use an expression of the fair Fischtaminel, 'It'snot the act of a gentleman!'"

Adolphe laughs and pays the expenses of the reconciliation; butinstead of discovering therein what will please Caroline and what willattach her to him, he finds out what attaches him to her. 

 NOSOGRAPHY OF THE VILLA. 

Is it advantageous for a man not to know what will please his wifeafter their marriage? Some women (this still occurs in the country)are innocent enough to tell promptly what they want and what theylike. But in Paris, nearly every woman feels a kind of enjoyment inseeing a man wistfully obedient to her heart, her desires, hercaprices--three expressions for the same thing!--and anxiously goinground and round, half crazy and desperate, like a dog that has losthis master. 

They call this _being loved_, poor things! And a good many of them sayto themselves, as did Caroline, "How will he manage?"

Adolphe has come to this. In this situation of things, the worthy andexcellent Deschars, that model of the citizen husband, invites thecouple known as Adolphe and Caroline to help him and his wifeinaugurate a delightful country house. It is an opportunity that theDeschars have seized upon, the folly of a man of letters, a charmingvilla upon which he lavished one hundred thousand francs and which hasbeen sold at auction for eleven thousand. Caroline has a new dress toair, or a hat with a weeping willow plume--things which a tilbury willset off to a charm. Little Charles is left with his grandmother. Theservants have a holiday. The youthful pair start beneath the smile ofa blue sky, flecked with milk-while clouds merely to heighten theeffect. They breathe the pure air, through which trots the heavyNorman horse, animated by the influence of spring. They soon reachMarnes, beyond Ville d'Avray, where the Deschars are spreadingthemselves in a villa copied from one at Florence, and surrounded bySwiss meadows, though without all the objectionable features of theAlps. 

"Dear me! what a delightful thing a country house like this must be!"exclaims Caroline, as she walks in the admirable wood that skirtsMarnes and Ville d'Avray. "It makes your eyes as happy as if they hada heart in them. "

Caroline, having no one to take but Adolphe, takes Adolphe, whobecomes her Adolphe again. And then you should see her run about likea fawn, and act once more the sweet, pretty, innocent, adorableschool-girl that she was! Her braids come down! She takes off herbonnet, and holds it by the strings! She is young, pink and whiteagain. Her eyes smile, her mouth is a pomegranate endowed withsensibility, with a sensibility which seems quite fresh. 

"So a country house would please you very much, would it, darling?"says Adolphe, clasping Caroline round the waist, and noticing that sheleans upon him as if to show the flexibility of her form. 

"What, will you be such a love as to buy me one? But remember, noextravagance! Seize an opportunity like the Deschars. "

"To please you and to find out what is likely to give you pleasure, such is the constant study of your own Dolph. "

They are alone, at liberty to call each other their little names ofendearment, and run over the whole list of their secret caresses. 

"Does he really want to please his little girly?" says Caroline, resting her head on the shoulder of Adolphe, who kisses her forehead, saying to himself, "Gad! I've got her now!"

Axiom. --When a husband and a wife have got each other, the devil onlyknows which has got the other. 

The young couple are captivating, whereupon the stout Madame Descharsgives utterance to a remark somewhat equivocal for her, usually sostern, prudish and devout. 

"Country air has one excellent property: it makes husbands veryamiable. "

M. Deschars points out an opportunity for Adolphe to seize. A house isto be sold at Ville d'Avray, for a song, of course. Now, the countryhouse is a weakness peculiar to the inhabitant of Paris. Thisweakness, or disease, has its course and its cure. Adolphe is ahusband, but not a doctor. He buys the house and takes possession withCaroline, who has become once more his Caroline, his Carola, his fawn, his treasure, his girly girl. 

The following alarming symptoms now succeed each other with frightfulrapidity: a cup of milk, baptized, costs five sous; when it isanhydrous, as the chemists say, ten sous. Meat costs more at Sevresthan at Paris, if you carefully examine the qualities. Fruit cannot behad at any price. A fine pear costs more in the country than in the(anhydrous!) garden that blooms in Chevet's window. 

Before being able to raise fruit for oneself, from a Swiss meadowmeasuring two square yards, surrounded by a few green trees which lookas if they were borrowed from the scenic illusions of a theatre, themost rural authorities, being consulted on the point, declare that youmust spend a great deal of money, and--wait five years! Vegetablesdash out of the husbandman's garden to reappear at the city market. Madame Deschars, who possesses a gate-keeper that is at the same timea gardener, confesses that the vegetables raised on her land, beneathher glass frames, by dint of compost and top-soil, cost her twice asmuch as those she used to buy at Paris, of a woman who had rent andtaxes to pay, and whose husband was an elector. Despite the effortsand pledges of the gate-keeper-gardener, early peas and things atParis are a month in advance of those in the country. 

From eight in the evening to eleven our couple don't know what to do, on account of the insipidity of the neighbors, their small ideas, andthe questions of self-love which arise out of the merest trifles. 

Monsieur Deschars remarks, with that profound knowledge of figureswhich distinguishes the ex-notary, that the cost of going to Paris andback, added to the interest of the cost of his villa, to the taxes, wages of the gate-keeper and his wife, are equal to a rent of threethousand francs a year. He does not see how he, an ex-notary, allowedhimself to be so caught! For he has often drawn up leases of chateauxwith parks and out-houses, for three thousand a year. 

It is agreed by everybody in the parlor of Madame Deschars, that acountry house, so far from being a pleasure, is an unmitigatednuisance. 

"I don't see how they sell a cabbage for one sou at market, which hasto be watered every day from its birth to the time you eat it, " saysCaroline. 

"The way to get along in the country, " replies a little retiredgrocer, "is to stay there, to live there, to become country-folks, andthen everything changes. "

On going home, Caroline says to her poor Adolphe, "What an idea thatwas of yours, to buy a country house! The best way to do about thecountry is to go there on visits to other people. "

Adolphe remembers an English proverb, which says, "Don't have anewspaper or a country seat of your own: there are plenty of idiotswho will have them for you. "

"Bah!" returns Adolph, who was enlightened once for all upon women'slogic by the Matrimonial Gadfly, "you are right: but then you know thebaby is in splendid health, here. "

Though Adolphe has become prudent, this reply awakens Caroline'ssusceptibilities. A mother is very willing to think exclusively of herchild, but she does not want him to be preferred to herself. She issilent; the next day, she is tired to death of the country. Adolphebeing absent on business, she waits for him from five o'clock toseven, and goes alone with little Charles to the coach office. Shetalks for three-quarters of an hour of her anxieties. She was afraidto go from the house to the office. Is it proper for a young woman tobe left alone, so? She cannot support such an existence. 

The country house now creates a very peculiar phase; one whichdeserves a chapter to itself. 

 TROUBLE WITHIN TROUBLE. 

Axiom. --There are parentheses in worry. 

EXAMPLE--A great deal of evil has been said of the stitch in the side;but it is nothing to the stitch to which we now refer, which thepleasures of the matrimonial second crop are everlastingly reviving, like the hammer of a note in the piano. This constitutes an irritant, which never flourishes except at the period when the young wife'stimidity gives place to that fatal equality of rights which is at oncedevastating France and the conjugal relation. Every season has itspeculiar vexation. 

Caroline, after a week spent in taking note of her husband's absences, perceives that he passes seven hours a day away from her. At last, Adolphe, who comes home as gay as an actor who has been applauded, observes a slight coating of hoar frost upon Caroline's visage. Aftermaking sure that the coldness of her manner has been observed, Caroline puts on a counterfeit air of interest, --the well-knownexpression of which possesses the gift of making a man inwardlyswear, --and says: "You must have had a good deal of business to-day, dear?"

"Oh, lots!"

"Did you take many cabs?"

"I took seven francs' worth. "

"Did you find everybody in?"

"Yes, those with whom I had appointments. "

"When did you make appointments with them? The ink in your inkstand isdried up; it's like glue; I wanted to write, and spent a whole hour inmoistening it, and even then only produced a thick mud fit to markbundles with for the East Indies. "

Here any and every husband looks suspiciously at his better half. 

"It is probable that I wrote them at Paris--"

"What business was it, Adolphe?"

"Why, I thought you knew. Shall I run over the list? First, there'sChaumontel's affair--"

"I thought Monsieur Chaumontel was in Switzerland--"

"Yes, but he has representatives, a lawyer--"

"Didn't you do anything else but business?" asks Caroline, interrupting Adolphe. 

Here she gives him a direct, piercing look, by which she plunges intoher husband's eyes when he least expects it: a sword in a heart. 

"What could I have done? Made a little counterfeit money, run intodebt, or embroidered a sampler?"

"Oh, dear, I don't know. And I can't even guess. I am too dull, you'vetold me so a hundred times. "

"There you go, and take an expression of endearment in bad part. Howlike a woman that is!"

"Have you concluded anything?" she asks, pretending to take aninterest in business. 

"No, nothing, "

"How many persons have you seen?"

"Eleven, without counting those who were walking in the streets. "

"How you answer me!"

"Yes, and how you question me! As if you'd been following the trade ofan examining judge for the last ten years!"

"Come, tell me all you've done to-day, it will amuse me. You ought totry to please me while you are here! I'm dull enough when you leave mealone all day long. "

"You want me to amuse you by telling you about business?"

"Formerly, you told me everything--"

This friendly little reproach disguises the certitude that Carolinewishes to enjoy respecting the serious matters which Adolphe wishes toconceal. Adolphe then undertakes to narrate how he has spent the day. Caroline affects a sort of distraction sufficiently well played toinduce the belief that she is not listening. 

"But you said just now, " she exclaims, at the moment when Adolphe isgetting into a snarl, "that you had paid seven francs for cabs, andyou now talk of a hack! You took it by the hour, I suppose? Did you doyour business in a hack?" she asks, railingly. 

"Why should hacks be interdicted?" inquires Adolphe, resuming hisnarrative. 

"Haven't you been to Madame de Fischtaminel's?" she asks in the middleof an exceedingly involved explanation, insolently taking the wordsout of your mouth. 

"Why should I have been there?"

"It would have given me pleasure: I wanted to know whether her parloris done. "

"It is. "

"Ah! then you _have_ been there?"

"No, her upholsterer told me. "

"Do you know her upholsterer?"

"Yes. "

"Who is it?"

"Braschon. "

"So you met the upholsterer?"

"Yes. "

"You said you only went in carriages. "

"Yes, my dear, but to get carriages, you have to go and--"

"Pooh! I dare say Braschon was in the carriage, or the parlor was--oneor the other is equally probable. "

"You won't listen, " exclaims Adolphe, who thinks that a long storywill lull Caroline's suspicions. 

"I've listened too much already. You've been lying for the last hour, worse than a drummer. "

"Well, I'll say nothing more. "

"I know enough. I know all I wanted to know. You say you've seenlawyers, notaries, bankers: now you haven't seen one of them! SupposeI were to go to-morrow to see Madame de Fischtaminel, do you know whatshe would say?"

Here, Caroline watches Adolphe closely: but Adolphe affects a delusivecalmness, in the middle of which Caroline throws out her line to fishup a clue. 

"Why, she would say that she had had the pleasure of seeing you! Howwretched we poor creatures are! We never know what you are doing: herewe are stuck, chained at home, while you are off at your business!Fine business, truly! If I were in your place, I would invent businessa little bit better put together than yours! Ah, you set us a worthyexample! They say women are perverse. Who perverted them?"

Here Adolphe tries, by looking fixedly at Caroline, to arrest thetorrent of words. Caroline, like a horse who has just been touched upby the lash, starts off anew, and with the animation of one ofRossini's codas:

"Yes, it's a very neat idea, to put your wife out in the country sothat you may spend the day as you like at Paris. So this is the causeof your passion for a country house! Snipe that I was, to be caught inthe trap! You are right, sir, a villa is very convenient: it servestwo objects. But the wife can get along with it as well as thehusband. You may take Paris and its hacks! I'll take the woods andtheir shady groves! Yes, Adolphe, I am really satisfied, so let's sayno more about it. "

Adolphe listens to sarcasm for an hour by the clock. 

"Have you done, dear?" he asks, profiting by an instant in which shetosses her head after a pointed interrogation. 

Then Caroline concludes thus: "I've had enough of the villa, and I'llnever set foot in it again. But I know what will happen: you'll keepit, probably, and leave me in Paris. Well, at Paris, I can at leastamuse myself, while you go with Madame de Fischtaminel to the woods. What is a _Villa Adolphini_ where you get nauseated if you go sixtimes round the lawn? where they've planted chair-legs andbroom-sticks on the pretext of producing shade? It's like a furnace:the walls are six inches thick! and my gentleman is absent seven hoursa day! That's what a country seat means!"

"Listen to me, Caroline. "

"I wouldn't so much mind, if you would only confess what you didto-day. You don't know me yet: come, tell me, I won't scold you. Ipardon you beforehand for all that you've done. "

Adolphe, who knows the consequences of a confession too well to makeone to his wife, replies--"Well, I'll tell you. "

"That's a good fellow--I shall love you better. "

"I was three hours--"

"I was sure of it--at Madame de Fischtaminel's!"

"No, at our notary's, as he had got me a purchaser; but we could notcome to terms: he wanted our villa furnished. When I left there, Iwent to Braschon's, to see how much we owed him--"

"You made up this romance while I was talking to you! Look me in theface! I'll go to see Braschon to-morrow. "

Adolphe cannot restrain a nervous shudder. 

"You can't help laughing, you monster!"

"I laugh at your obstinacy. "

"I'll go to-morrow to Madame de Fischtaminel's. "

"Oh, go wherever you like!"

"What brutality!" says Caroline, rising and going away with herhandkerchief at her eyes. 

The country house, so ardently longed for by Caroline, has now becomea diabolical invention of Adolphe's, a trap into which the fawn hasfallen. 

Since Adolphe's discovery that it is impossible to reason withCaroline, he lets her say whatever she pleases. 

Two months after, he sells the villa which cost him twenty-twothousand francs for seven thousand! But he gains this by theadventure--he finds out that the country is not the thing thatCaroline wants. 

The question is becoming serious. Nature, with its woods, its forests, its valleys, the Switzerland of the environs of Paris, the artificialrivers, have amused Caroline for barely six months. Adolphe is temptedto abdicate and take Caroline's part himself. 

 A HOUSEHOLD REVOLUTION. 

One morning, Adolphe is seized by the triumphant idea of lettingCaroline find out for herself what she wants. He gives up to her thecontrol of the house, saying, "Do as you like. " He substitutes theconstitutional system for the autocratic system, a responsibleministry for an absolute conjugal monarchy. This proof of confidence--the object of much secret envy--is, to women, a field-marshal'sbaton. Women are then, so to speak, mistresses at home. 

After this, nothing, not even the memory of the honey-moon, can becompared to Adolphe's happiness for several days. A woman, under suchcircumstances, is all sugar. She is too sweet: she would invent theart of petting and cosseting and of coining tender little names, ifthis matrimonial sugar-plummery had not existed ever since theTerrestrial Paradise. At the end of the month, Adolphe's condition islike that of children towards the close of New Year's week. SoCaroline is beginning to say, not in words, but in acts, in manner, inmimetic expressions: "It's difficult to tell _what_ to do to please aman!"

Giving up the helm of the boat to one's wife, is an exceedinglyordinary idea, and would hardly deserve the qualification of"triumphant, " which we have given it at the commencement of thischapter, if it were not accompanied by that of taking it back again. Adolphe was seduced by a wish, which invariably seizes persons who arethe prey of misfortune, to know how far an evil will go!--to try howmuch damage fire will do when left to itself, the individualpossessing, or thinking he possesses, the power to arrest it. Thiscuriosity pursues us from the cradle to the grave. Then, after hisplethora of conjugal felicity, Adolphe, who is treating himself to afarce in his own house, goes through the following phases:

FIRST EPOCH. Things go on altogether too well. Caroline buys littleaccount books to keep a list of her expenses in, she buys a nicelittle piece of furniture to store her money in, she feeds Adolphesuperbly, she is happy in his approbation, she discovers that verymany articles are needed in the house. It is her ambition to be anincomparable housekeeper. Adolphe, who arrogates to himself the rightof censorship, no longer finds the slightest suggestion to make. 

When he dresses himself, everything is ready to his hands. Not even inArmide's garden was more ingenious tenderness displayed than that ofCaroline. For her phoenix husband, she renews the wax upon his razorstrap, she substitutes new suspenders for old ones. None of hisbutton-holes are ever widowed. His linen is as well cared for as thatof the confessor of the devotee, all whose sins are venial. Hisstockings are free from holes. At table, his tastes, his capriceseven, are studied, consulted: he is getting fat! There is ink in hisinkstand, and the sponge is always moist. He never has occasion tosay, like Louis XIV, "I came near having to wait!" In short, he hearshimself continually called _a love of a man_. He is obliged toreproach Caroline for neglecting herself: she does not pay sufficientattention to her own needs. Of this gentle reproach Caroline takesnote. 

SECOND EPOCH. The scene changes, at table. Everything is exceedinglydear. Vegetables are beyond one's means. Wood sells as if it came fromCampeche. Fruit? Oh! as to fruit, princes, bankers and great lordsalone can eat it. Dessert is a cause of ruin. Adolphe often hearsCaroline say to Madame Deschars: "How do you manage?" Conferences areheld in your presence upon the proper way to keep cooks under thethumb. 

A cook who entered your service without effects, without clothes, andwithout talent, has come to get her wages in a blue merino gown, setoff by an embroidered neckerchief, her ears embellished with a pair ofear-rings enriched with small pearls, her feet clothed in comfortableshoes which give you a glimpse of neat cotton stockings. She has twotrunks full of property, and keeps an account at the savings bank. 

Upon this Caroline complains of the bad morals of the lower classes:she complains of the education and the knowledge of figures whichdistinguish domestics. From time to time she utters little axioms likethe following: There are some mistakes you _must_ make!--It's onlythose who do nothing who do everything well. --She has the anxietiesthat belong to power. --Ah! men are fortunate in not having a house tokeep. --Women bear the burden of the innumerable details. 

THIRD EPOCH. Caroline, absorbed in the idea that you should eat merelyto live, treats Adolphe to the delights of a cenobitic table. 

Adolphe's stockings are either full of holes or else rough with thelichen of hasty mendings, for the day is not long enough for all thathis wife has to do. He wears suspenders blackened by use. His linen isold and gapes like a door-keeper, or like the door itself. At a timewhen Adolphe is in haste to conclude a matter of business, it takeshim an hour to dress: he has to pick out his garments one by one, opening many an article before finding one fit to wear. But Carolineis charmingly dressed. She has pretty bonnets, velvet boots, mantillas. She has made up her mind, she conducts her administrationin virtue of this principle: Charity well understood begins at home. When Adolphe complains of the contrast between his poverty-strickenwardrobe and Caroline's splendor, she says, "Why, you reproached mewith buying nothing for myself!"

The husband and the wife here begin to bandy jests more or lessacrimonious. One evening Caroline makes herself very agreeable, inorder to insinuate an avowal of a rather large deficit, just as theministry begins to eulogize the tax-payers, and boast of the wealth ofthe country, when it is preparing to bring forth a bill for anadditional appropriation. There is this further similitude that bothare done in the chamber, whether in administration or in housekeeping. From this springs the profound truth that the constitutional system isinfinitely dearer than the monarchical system. For a nation as for ahousehold, it is the government of the happy balance, of mediocrity, of chicanery. 

Adolphe, enlightened by his past annoyances, waits for an opportunityto explode, and Caroline slumbers in a delusive security. 

What starts the quarrel? Do we ever know what electric currentprecipitates the avalanche or decides a revolution? It may result fromanything or nothing. But finally, Adolphe, after a period to bedetermined in each case by the circumstances of the couple, uttersthis fatal phrase, in the midst of a discussion: "Ah! when I was abachelor!"

Her husband's bachelor life is to a woman what the phrase, "My deardeceased, " is to a widow's second husband. These two stings producewounds which are never completely healed. 

Then Adolphe goes on like General Bonaparte haranguing the FiveHundred: "We are on a volcano!--The house no longer has a head, thetime to come to an understanding has arrived. --You talk of happiness, Caroline, but you have compromised, imperiled it by your exactions, you have violated the civil code: you have mixed yourself up in thediscussions of business, and you have invaded the conjugal authority. --We must reform our internal affairs. "

Caroline does not shout, like the Five Hundred, "Down with thedictator!" For people never shout a man down, when they feel that theycan put him down. 

"When I was a bachelor I had none but new stockings! I had a cleannapkin every day on my plate. The restaurateur only fleeced me of adeterminate sum. I have given up to you my beloved liberty! What haveyou done with it?"

"Am I then so very wrong, Adolphe, to have sought to spare younumerous cares?" says Caroline, taking an attitude before her husband. "Take the key of the money-box back, --but do you know what willhappen? I am ashamed, but you will compel me to go on to the stage toget the merest necessaries of life. Is this what you want? Degradeyour wife, or bring in conflict two contrary, hostile interests--"

Such, for three quarters of the French people is an exact definitionof marriage. 

"Be perfectly easy, dear, " resumes Caroline, seating herself in herchair like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, "I will never ask you foranything. I am not a beggar! I know what I'll do--you don't know meyet. "

"Well, what will you do?" asks Adolphe; "it seems impossible to jokeor have an explanation with you women. What will you do?"

"It doesn't concern you at all. "

"Excuse me, madame, quite the contrary. Dignity, honor--"

"Oh, have no fear of that, sir. For your sake more than for my own, Iwill keep it a dead secret. "

"Come, Caroline, my own Carola, what do you mean to do?"

Caroline darts a viper-like glance at Adolphe, who recoils andproceeds to walk up and down the room. 

"There now, tell me, what will you do?" he repeats after much tooprolonged a silence. 

"I shall go to work, sir!"

At this sublime declaration, Adolphe executes a movement in retreat, detecting a bitter exasperation, and feeling the sharpness of a northwind which had never before blown in the matrimonial chamber. 

 THE ART OF BEING A VICTIM. 

On and after the Revolution, our vanquished Caroline adopts aninfernal system, the effect of which is to make you regret yourvictory every hour. She becomes the opposition! Should Adolphe haveone more such triumph, he would appear before the Court of Assizes, accused of having smothered his wife between two mattresses, likeShakespeare's Othello. Caroline puts on the air of a martyr; hersubmission is positively killing. On every occasion she assassinatesAdolphe with a "Just as you like!" uttered in tones whose sweetness issomething fearful. No elegiac poet could compete with Caroline, whoutters elegy upon elegy: elegy in action, elegy in speech: her smileis elegiac, her silence is elegiac, her gestures are elegiac. Here area few examples, wherein every household will find some of itsimpressions recorded:

AFTER BREAKFAST. "Caroline, we go to-night to the Deschars' grand ballyou know. "

"Yes, love. "

AFTER DINNER. "What, not dressed yet, Caroline?" exclaims Adolphe, whohas just made his appearance, magnificently equipped. 

He finds Caroline arrayed in a gown fit for an elderly lady of strongconversational powers, a black moire with an old-fashioned fan-waist. Flowers, too badly imitated to deserve the name of artificial, give agloomy aspect to a head of hair which the chambermaid has carelesslyarranged. Caroline's gloves have already seen wear and tear. 

"I am ready, my dear. "

"What, in that dress?"

"I have no other. A new dress would have cost three hundred francs. "

"Why did you not tell me?"

"I, ask you for anything, after what has happened!"

"I'll go alone, " says Adolphe, unwilling to be humiliated in his wife. 

"I dare say you are very glad to, " returns Caroline, in a captioustone, "it's plain enough from the way you are got up. "

Eleven persons are in the parlor, all invited to dinner by Adolphe. Caroline is there, looking as if her husband had invited her too. Sheis waiting for dinner to be served. 

"Sir, " says the parlor servant in a whisper to his master, "the cookdoesn't know what on earth to do!"

"What's the matter?"

"You said nothing to her, sir: and she has only two side-dishes, thebeef, a chicken, a salad and vegetables. "

"Caroline, didn't you give the necessary orders?"

"How did I know that you had company, and besides I can't take it uponmyself to give orders here! You delivered me from all care on thatpoint, and I thank heaven for it every day of my life. "

Madame de Fischtaminel has called to pay Madame Caroline a visit. Shefinds her coughing feebly and nearly bent double over her embroidery. 

"Ah, so you are working those slippers for your dear Adolphe?"

Adolphe is standing before the fire-place as complacently as may be. 

"No, madame, it's for a tradesman who pays me for them: like theconvicts, my labor enables me to treat myself to some littlecomforts. "

Adolphe reddens; he can't very well beat his wife, and Madame deFischtaminel looks at him as much as to say, "What does this mean?"

"You cough a good deal, my darling, " says Madame de Fischtaminel. 

"Oh!" returns Caroline, "what is life to me?"

Caroline is seated, conversing with a lady of your acquaintance, whosegood opinion you are exceedingly anxious to retain. From the depths ofthe embrasure where you are talking with some friends, you gather, from the mere motion of her lips, these words: "My husband would haveit so!" uttered with the air of a young Roman matron going to thecircus to be devoured. You are profoundly wounded in your severalvanities, and wish to attend to this conversation while listening toyour guests: you thus make replies which bring you back such inquiriesas: "Why, what are you thinking of?" For you have lost the thread ofthe discourse, and you fidget nervously with your feet, thinking toyourself, "What is she telling her about me?"

Adolphe is dining with the Deschars: twelve persons are at table, andCaroline is seated next to a nice young man named Ferdinand, Adolphe'scousin. Between the first and second course, conjugal happiness is thesubject of conversation. 

"There is nothing easier than for a woman to be happy, " says Carolinein reply to a woman who complains of her husband. 

"Tell us your secret, madame, " says M. De Fischtaminel agreeably. 

"A woman has nothing to do but to meddle with nothing to considerherself as the first servant in the house or as a slave that themaster takes care of, to have no will of her own, and never to make anobservation: thus all goes well. "

This, delivered in a bitter tone and with tears in her voice, alarmsAdolphe, who looks fixedly at his wife. 

"You forget, madame, the happiness of telling about one's happiness, "he returns, darting at her a glance worthy of the tyrant in amelodrama. 

Quite satisfied with having shown herself assassinated or on the pointof being so, Caroline turns her head aside, furtively wipes away atear, and says:

"Happiness cannot be described!"

This incident, as they say at the Chamber, leads to nothing, butFerdinand looks upon his cousin as an angel about to be offered up. 

Some one alludes to the frightful prevalence of inflammation of thestomach, or to the nameless diseases of which young women die. 

"Ah, too happy they!" exclaims Caroline, as if she were foretellingthe manner of her death. 

Adolphe's mother-in-law comes to see her daughter. Caroline says, "Myhusband's parlor:" "Your master's chamber. " Everything in the housebelongs to "My husband. "

"Why, what's the matter, children?" asks the mother-in-law; "you seemto be at swords' points. "

"Oh, dear me, " says Adolphe, "nothing but that Caroline has had themanagement of the house and didn't manage it right, that's all. "

"She got into debt, I suppose?"

"Yes, dearest mamma. "

"Look here, Adolphe, " says the mother-in-law, after having waited tobe left alone with her son, "would you prefer to have my daughtermagnificently dressed, to have everything go on smoothly, _without itscosting you anything_?"

Imagine, if you can, the expression of Adolphe's physiognomy, as hehears _this declaration of woman's rights_!

Caroline abandons her shabby dress and appears in a splendid one. Sheis at the Deschars': every one compliments her upon her taste, uponthe richness of her materials, upon her lace, her jewels. 

"Ah! you have a charming husband!" says Madame Deschars. Adolphetosses his head proudly, and looks at Caroline. 

"My husband, madame! I cost that gentleman nothing, thank heaven! AllI have was given me by my mother. "

Adolphe turns suddenly about and goes to talk with Madame deFischtaminel. 

After a year of absolute monarchy, Caroline says very mildly onemorning:

"How much have you spent this year, dear?"

"I don't know. "

"Examine your accounts. "

Adolphe discovers that he has spent a third more than duringCaroline's worst year. 

"And I've cost you nothing for my dress, " she adds. 

Caroline is playing Schubert's melodies. Adolphe takes great pleasurein hearing these compositions well-executed: he gets up andcompliments Caroline. She bursts into tears. 

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I'm nervous. "

"I didn't know you were subject to that. "

"O Adolphe, you won't see anything! Look, my rings come off myfingers: you don't love me any more--I'm a burden to you--"

She weeps, she won't listen, she weeps afresh at every word Adolpheutters. 

"Suppose you take the management of the house back again?"

"Ah!" she exclaims, rising sharply to her feet, like a spring figurein a box, "now that you've had enough of your experience! Thank you!Do you suppose it's money that I want? Singular method, yours, ofpouring balm upon a wounded heart. No, go away. "

"Very well, just as you like, Caroline. "

This "just as you like" is the first expression of indifferencetowards a wife: and Caroline sees before her an abyss towards whichshe had been walking of her own free will. 

 THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN. 

The disasters of 1814 afflict every species of existence. Afterbrilliant days of conquest, after the period during which obstacleschange to triumphs, and the slightest check becomes a piece of goodfortune, there comes a time when the happiest ideas turn out blunders, when courage leads to destruction, and when your very fortificationsare a stumbling-block. Conjugal love, which, according to authors, isa peculiar phase of love, has, more than anything else, its FrenchCampaign, its fatal 1814. The devil especially loves to dangle histail in the affairs of poor desolate women, and to this Caroline hascome. 

Caroline is trying to think of some means of bringing her husbandback. She spends many solitary hours at home, and during this time herimagination works. She goes and comes, she gets up, and often standspensively at the window, looking at the street and seeing nothing, herface glued to the panes, and feeling as if in a desert, in the midstof her friends, in the bosom of her luxuriously furnished apartments. 

Now, in Paris, unless a person occupy a house of his own, enclosedbetween a court and a garden, all life is double. At every story, afamily sees another family in the opposite house. Everybody plungeshis gaze at will into his neighbor's domains. There is a necessity formutual observation, a common right of search from which none canescape. At a given time, in the morning, you get up early, the servantopposite is dusting the parlor, she has left the windows open and hasput the rugs on the railing; you divine a multitude of things, andvice-versa. Thus, in a given time, you are acquainted with the habitsof the pretty, the old, the young, the coquettish, the virtuous womanopposite, or the caprices of the coxcomb, the inventions of the oldbachelor, the color of the furniture, and the cat of the two pairfront. Everything furnishes a hint, and becomes matter for divination. At the fourth story, a grisette, taken by surprise, finds herself--toolate, like the chaste Susanne, --the prey of the delighted lorgnette ofan aged clerk, who earns eighteen hundred francs a year, and whobecomes criminal gratis. On the other hand, a handsome younggentleman, who, for the present, works without wages, and is onlynineteen years old, appears before the sight of a pious old lady, inthe simple apparel of a man engaged in shaving. The watch thus kept upis never relaxed, while prudence, on the contrary, has its moments offorgetfulness. Curtains are not always let down in time. A woman, justbefore dark, approaches the window to thread her needle, and themarried man opposite may then admire a head that Raphael might havepainted, and one that he considers worthy of himself--a National Guardtruly imposing when under arms. Oh, sacred private life, where artthou! Paris is a city ever ready to exhibit itself half naked, a cityessentially libertine and devoid of modesty. For a person's life to bedecorous in it, the said person should have a hundred thousand a year. Virtues are dearer than vices in Paris. 

Caroline, whose gaze sometimes steals between the protecting muslinswhich hide her domestic life from the five stories opposite, at lastdiscovers a young couple plunged in the delights of the honey-moon, and newly established in the first story directly in view of herwindow. She spends her time in the most exciting observations. Theblinds are closed early, and opened late. One day, Caroline, who hasarisen at eight o'clock notices, by accident, of course, the maidpreparing a bath or a morning dress, a delicious deshabille. Carolinesighs. She lies in ambush like a hunter at the cover; she surprisesthe young woman, her face actually illuminated with happiness. Finally, by dint of watching the charming couple, she sees thegentleman and lady open the window, and lean gently one against theother, as, supported by the railing, they breathe the evening air. Caroline gives herself a nervous headache, by endeavoring to interpretthe phantasmagorias, some of them having an explanation and othersnot, made by the shadows of these two young people on the curtains, one night when they have forgotten to close the shutters. The youngwoman is often seated, melancholy and pensive, waiting for her absenthusband; she hears the tread of a horse, or the rumble of a cab at thestreet corner; she starts from the sofa, and from her movements, it iseasy for Caroline to see that she exclaims: "'Tis he!"

"How they love each other!" says Caroline to herself. 

By dint of nervous headache, Caroline conceives an exceedinglyingenious plan: this plan consists in using the conjugal bliss of theopposite neighbors as a tonic to stimulate Adolphe. The idea is notwithout depravity, but then Caroline's intention sanctifies the means!

"Adolphe, " she says, "we have a neighbor opposite, the loveliestwoman, a brunette--"

"Oh, yes, " returns Adolphe, "I know her. She is a friend of Madame deFischtaminel's: Madame Foullepointe, the wife of a broker, a charmingman and a good fellow, very fond of his wife: he's crazy about her. His office and rooms are here, in the court, while those on the streetare madame's. I know of no happier household. Foullepointe talks abouthis happiness everywhere, even at the Exchange; he's really quitetiresome. "

"Well, then, be good enough to present Monsieur and MadameFoullepointe to me. I should be delighted to learn how she manages tomake her husband love her so much: have they been married long?"

"Five years, just like us. "

"O Adolphe, dear, I am dying to know her: make us intimatelyacquainted. Am I as pretty as she?"

"Well, if I were to meet you at an opera ball, and if you weren't mywife, I declare, I shouldn't know which--"

"You are real sweet to-day. Don't forget to invite them to dinnerSaturday. "

"I'll do it to-night. Foullepointe and I often meet on 'Change. "

"Now, " says Caroline, "this young woman will doubtless tell me whather method of action is. "

Caroline resumes her post of observation. At about three she looksthrough the flowers which form as it were a bower at the window, andexclaims, "Two perfect doves!"

For the Saturday in question, Caroline invites Monsieur and MadameDeschars, the worthy Monsieur Fischtaminel, in short, the mostvirtuous couples of her society. She has brought out all herresources: she has ordered the most sumptuous dinner, she has takenthe silver out of the chest: she means to do all honor to the model ofwives. 

"My dear, you will see to-night, " she says to Madame Deschars, at themoment when all the women are looking at each other in silence, "themost admirable young couple in the world, our opposite neighbors: ayoung man of fair complexion, so graceful and with _such_ manners! Hishead is like Lord Byron's, and he's a real Don Juan, only faithful:he's discovered the secret of making love eternal: I shall perhapsobtain a second crop of it from her example. Adolphe, when he seesthem, will blush at his conduct, and--"

The servant announces: "Monsieur and Madame Foullepointe. "

Madame Foullepointe, a pretty brunette, a genuine Parisian, slight anderect in form, the brilliant light of her eye quenched by her longlashes, charmingly dressed, sits down upon the sofa. Caroline bows toa fat gentleman with thin gray hair, who follows this ParisAndalusian, and who exhibits a face and paunch fit for Silenus, abutter-colored pate, a deceitful, libertine smile upon his big, heavylips, --in short, a philosopher! Caroline looks upon this individualwith astonishment. 

"Monsieur Foullepointe, my dear, " says Adolphe, presenting the worthyquinquagenarian. 

"I am delighted, madame, " says Caroline, good-naturedly, "that youhave brought your father-in-law [profound sensation], but we shallsoon see your husband, I trust--"

"Madame--!"

Everybody listens and looks. Adolphe becomes the object of every one'sattention; he is literally dumb with amazement: if he could, he wouldwhisk Caroline off through a trap, as at the theatre. 

"This is Monsieur Foullepointe, my husband, " says Madame Foullepointe. 

Caroline turns scarlet as she sees her ridiculous blunder, and Adolphescathes her with a look of thirty-six candlepower. 

"You said he was young and fair, " whispers Madame Deschars. MadameFoullepointe, --knowing lady that she is, --boldly stares at theceiling. 

A month after, Madame Foullepointe and Caroline become intimate. Adolphe, who is taken up with Madame de Fischtaminel, pays noattention to this dangerous friendship, a friendship which will bearits fruits, for--pray learn this--

Axiom. --Women have corrupted more women than men have ever loved. 

 A SOLO ON THE HEARSE. 

After a period, the length of which depends on the strength ofCaroline's principles, she appears to be languishing; and whenAdolphe, anxious for decorum's sake, as he sees her stretched out uponthe sofa like a snake in the sun, asks her, "What is the matter, love?What do you want?"

"I wish I was dead!" she replies. 

"Quite a merry and agreeable wish!"

"It isn't death that frightens me, it's suffering. "

"I suppose that means that I don't make you happy! That's the way withwomen!"

Adolphe strides about the room, talking incoherently: but he isbrought to a dead halt by seeing Caroline dry her tears, which arereally flowing artistically, in an embroidered handkerchief. 

"Do you feel sick?"

"I don't feel well. [Silence. ] I only hope that I shall live longenough to see my daughter married, for I know the meaning, now, of theexpression so little understood by the young--_the choice of ahusband_! Go to your amusements, Adolphe: a woman who thinks of thefuture, a woman who suffers, is not at all diverting: come, go andhave a good time. "

"Where do you feel bad?"

"I don't feel bad, dear: I never was better. I don't feel anything. No, really, I am better. There, leave me to myself. "

This time, being the first, Adolphe goes away almost sad. 

A week passes, during which Caroline orders all the servants toconceal from her husband her deplorable situation: she languishes, sherings when she feels she is going off, she uses a great deal of ether. The domestics finally acquaint their master with madame's conjugalheroism, and Adolphe remains at home one evening after dinner, andsees his wife passionately kissing her little Marie. 

"Poor child! I regret the future only for your sake! What is life, Ishould like to know?"

"Come, my dear, " says Adolphe, "don't take on so. "

"I'm not taking on. Death doesn't frighten me--I saw a funeral thismorning, and I thought how happy the body was! How comes it that Ithink of nothing but death? Is it a disease? I have an idea that Ishall die by my own hand. "

The more Adolphe tries to divert Caroline, the more closely she wrapsherself up in the crape of her hopeless melancholy. This second time, Adolphe stays at home and is wearied to death. At the third attack offorced tears, he goes out without the slightest compunction. Hefinally gets accustomed to these everlasting murmurs, to these dyingpostures, these crocodile tears. So he says:

"If you are sick, Caroline, you'd better have a doctor. "

"Just as you like! It will end quicker, so. But bring a famous one, ifyou bring any. "

At the end of a month, Adolphe, worn out by hearing the funereal airthat Caroline plays him on every possible key, brings home a famousdoctor. At Paris, doctors are all men of discernment, and areadmirably versed in conjugal nosography. 

"Well, madame, " says the great physician, "how happens it that sopretty a woman allows herself to be sick?"

"Ah! sir, like the nose of old father Aubry, I aspire to the tomb--"

Caroline, out of consideration for Adolphe, makes a feeble effort tosmile. 

"Tut, tut! But your eyes are clear: they don't seem to need ourinfernal drugs. "

"Look again, doctor, I am eaten up with fever, a slow, imperceptiblefever--"

And she fastens her most roguish glance upon the illustrious doctor, who says to himself, "What eyes!"

"Now, let me see your tongue. "

Caroline puts out her taper tongue between two rows of teeth as whiteas those of a dog. 

"It is a little bit furred at the root: but you have breakfasted--"observes the great physician, turning toward Adolphe. 

"Oh, a mere nothing, " returns Caroline; "two cups of tea--"

Adolphe and the illustrious leech look at each other, for the doctorwonders whether it is the husband or the wife that is trifling withhim. 

"What do you feel?" gravely inquires the physician. 

"I don't sleep. "

"Good!"

"I have no appetite. "

"Well!"

"I have a pain, here. "

The doctor examines the part indicated. 

"Very good, we'll look at that by and by. "

"Now and then a shudder passes over me--"

"Very good!"

"I have melancholy fits, I am always thinking of death, I feelpromptings of suicide--"

"Dear me! Really!"

"I have rushes of heat to the face: look, there's a constant tremblingin my eyelid. "

"Capital! We call that a trismus. "

The doctor goes into an explanation, which lasts a quarter of an hour, of the trismus, employing the most scientific terms. From this itappears that the trismus is the trismus: but he observes with thegreatest modesty that if science knows that the trismus is thetrismus, it is entirely ignorant of the cause of this nervousaffection, which comes and goes, appears and disappears--"and, " headds, "we have decided that it is altogether nervous. "

"Is it very dangerous?" asks Caroline, anxiously. 

"Not at all. How do you lie at night?"

"Doubled up in a heap. "

"Good. On which side?"

"The left. "

"Very well. How many mattresses are there on your bed?"

"Three. "

"Good. Is there a spring bed?"

"Yes. "

"What is the spring bed stuffed with?"

"Horse hair. "

"Capital. Let me see you walk. No, no, naturally, and as if we weren'tlooking at you. "

Caroline walks like Fanny Elssler, communicating the most Andalusianlittle motions to her tournure. 

"Do you feel a sensation of heaviness in your knees?"

"Well, no--" she returns to her place. "Ah, no that I think of it, itseems to me that I do. "

"Good. Have you been in the house a good deal lately?"

"Oh, yes, sir, a great deal too much--and alone. "

"Good. I thought so. What do you wear on your head at night?"

"An embroidered night-cap, and sometimes a handkerchief over it. "

"Don't you feel a heat there, a slight perspiration?"

"How can I, when I'm asleep?"

"Don't you find your night-cap moist on your forehead, when you wakeup?"

"Sometimes. "

"Capital. Give me your hand. "

The doctor takes out his watch. 

"Did I tell you that I have a vertigo?" asks Caroline. 

"Hush!" says the doctor, counting the pulse. "In the evening?"

"No, in the morning. "

"Ah, bless me, a vertigo in the morning, " says the doctor, looking atAdolphe. 

"The Duke of G. Has not gone to London, " says the great physician, while examining Caroline's skin, "and there's a good deal to be saidabout it in the Faubourg St. Germain. "

"Have you patients there?" asks Caroline. 

"Nearly all my patients are there. Dear me, yes; I've got seven to seethis morning; some of them are in danger. "

"What do you think of me, sir?" says Caroline. 

"Madame, you need attention, a great deal of attention, you must takequieting liquors, plenty of syrup of gum, a mild diet, white meat, anda good deal of exercise. "

"There go twenty francs, " says Adolphe to himself with a smile. 

The great physician takes Adolphe by the arm, and draws him out withhim, as he takes his leave: Caroline follows them on tiptoe. 

"My dear sir, " says the great physician, "I have just prescribed veryinsufficiently for your wife. I did not wish to frighten her: thisaffair concerns you more nearly than you imagine. Don't neglect her;she has a powerful temperament, and enjoys violent health; all thisreacts upon her. Nature has its laws, which, when disregarded, compelobedience. She may get into a morbid state, which would cause youbitterly to repent having neglected her. If you love her, why, loveher: but if you don't love her, and nevertheless desire to preservethe mother of your children, the resolution to come to is a matter ofhygiene, but it can only proceed from you!"

"How well he understand me!" says Caroline to herself. She opens thedoor and says: "Doctor, you did not write down the doses!"

The great physician smiles, bows and slips the twenty franc piece intohis pocket; he then leaves Adolphe to his wife, who takes him andsays:

"What is the fact about my condition? Must I prepare for death?"

"Bah! He says you're too healthy!" cries Adolphe, impatiently. 

Caroline retires to her sofa to weep. 

"What is it, now?"

"So I am to live a long time--I am in the way--you don't love me anymore--I won't consult that doctor again--I don't know why MadameFoullepointe advised me to see him, he told me nothing but trash--Iknow better than he what I need!"

"What do you need?"

"Can you ask, ungrateful man?" and Caroline leans her head onAdolphe's shoulder. 

Adolphe, very much alarmed, says to himself: "The doctor's right, shemay get to be morbidly exacting, and then what will become of me? HereI am compelled to choose between Caroline's physical extravagance, orsome young cousin or other. "

Meanwhile Caroline sits down and sings one of Schubert's melodies withall the agitation of a hypochondriac.