HUSBAND A. (smiling)--Don't they overwhelm you all the time with their superiority? Vanity so dominates their souls that between you and them the effort is reciprocal--

THE MISTRESS OF THE HOUSE. (aside to Wife A)--You well deserved it, my dear. (Wife A shrugs her shoulders.)

HUSBAND A. (still continuing)--Then the habit they have of combining ideas which reveal to them the mechanism of feeling! For them love is purely physical and every one knows that they do not shine.

WIFE B. (biting her lips, interrupting him)--It seems to me, sir, that we are the sole judges in this matter. I can well understand why men of the world do not like men of letters! But it is easier to criticise than to imitate them.

HUSBAND A. (disdainfully)--Oh, madame, men of the world can a.s.sail the authors of the present time without being accused of envy. There is many a gentleman of the drawing-room, who if he undertook to write--

WIFE B. (with warmth)--Unfortunately for you, sir, certain friends of yours in the Chamber have written romances; have you been able to read them?--But really, in these days, in order to attain the least originality, you must undertake historic research, you must--

HUSBAND B. (making no answer to the lady next him and speaking aside)--Oh! Oh! Can it be that it is M. de L-----, author of the _Dreams of a Young Girl_, whom my wife is in love with?--That is singular; I thought that it was Doctor M-----. But stay! (Aloud.) Do you know, my dear, that you are right in what you say? (All laugh.) Really, I should prefer to have always artists and men of letters in my drawing-room--(aside) when we begin to receive!--rather than to see there other professional men. In any case artists speak of things about which every one is enthusiastic, for who is there who does not believe in good taste? But judges, lawyers, and, above all, doctors--Heavens!

I confess that to hear them constantly speaking about lawsuits and diseases, those two human ills--

WIFE A. (sitting next to Husband B, speaking at the same time)--What is that you are saying, my friend? You are quite mistaken. In these days n.o.body wishes to wear a professional manner; doctors, since you have mentioned doctors, try to avoid speaking of professional matters.

They talk politics, discuss the fashions and the theatres, they tell anecdotes, they write books better than professional authors do; there is a vast difference between the doctors of to-day and those of Moliere--

HUSBAND A. (aside)--Whew! Is it possible my wife is in love with Dr.

M-----? That would be odd. (Aloud.) That is quite possible, my dear, but I would not give a sick dog in charge of a physician who writes.

WIFE A. (interrupting her husband)--I know people who have five or six offices, yet the government has the greatest confidence in them; anyway, it is odd that you should speak in this way, you who were one of Dr.

M-----'s great cases--

HUSBAND A. (aside)--There can be no doubt of it!

_The Fallacious._

A HUSBAND. (as he reaches home)--My dear, we are invited by Madame de Fischtaminel to a concert which she is giving next Tuesday. I reckoned on going there, as I wanted to speak with a young cousin of the minister who was among the singers; but he is gone to Frouville to see his aunt.

What do you propose doing?

HIS WIFE.--These concerts tire me to death!--You have to sit nailed to your chair whole hours without saying a word.--Besides, you know quite well that we dine with my mother on that day, and it is impossible to miss paying her a visit.

HER HUSBAND. (carelessly)--Ah! that is true.

_(Three days afterwards.)_

THE HUSBAND. (as he goes to bed)--What do you think, my darling?

To-morrow I will leave you at your mother's, for the count has returned from Frouville and will be at Madame de Fischtaminel's concert.

HIS WIFE. (vivaciously)--But why should you go alone? You know how I adore music!

_The Touch and Go Mouse-Trap._

THE WIFE.--Why did you go away so early this evening?

THE HUSBAND. (mysteriously)--Ah! It is a sad business, and all the more so because I don't know how I can settle it.

THE WIFE.--What is it all about, Adolph? You are a wretch if you do not tell me what you are going to do!

THE HUSBAND.--My dear, that a.s.s of a Prosper Magnan is fighting a duel with M. de Fontanges, on account of an Opera singer.--But what is the matter with you?

THE WIFE.--Nothing.--It is very warm in this room and I don't know what ails me, for the whole day I have been suffering from sudden flushing of the face.

THE HUSBAND. (aside)--She is in love with M. de Fontanges. (Aloud.) Celestine! (He shouts out still louder.) Celestine! Come quick, madame is ill!

You will understand that a clever husband will discover a thousand ways of setting these three kinds of traps.

2. OF CORRESPONDENCE.

To write a letter, and to have it posted; to get an answer, to read it and burn it; there we have correspondence stated in the simplest terms.

Yet consider what immense resources are given by civilization, by our manners and by our love to the women who wish to conceal these material actions from the scrutiny of a husband.

The inexorable box which keeps its mouth open to all comers receives its epistolary provender from all hands.

There is also the fatal invention of the General Delivery. A lover finds in the world a hundred charitable persons, male and female, who, for a slight consideration, will slip the billets-doux into the amorous and intelligent hand of his fair mistress.

A correspondence is a variable as Proteus. There are sympathetic inks. A young celibate has told us in confidence that he has written a letter on the fly-leaf of a new book, which, when the husband asked for it of the bookseller, reached the hands of his mistress, who had been prepared the evening before for this charming article.

A woman in love, who fears her husband's jealousy, will write and read billets-doux during the time consecrated to those mysterious occupations during which the most tyrannical husband must leave her alone.

Moreover, all lovers have the art of arranging a special code of signals, whose arbitrary import it is difficult to understand. At a ball, a flower placed in some odd way in the hair; at the theatre, a pocket handkerchief unfolded on the front of the box; rubbing the nose, wearing a belt of a particular color, putting the hat on one side, wearing one dress oftener than another, singing a certain song in a concert or touching certain notes on the piano; fixing the eyes on a point agreed; everything, in fact, from the hurdy-gurdy which pa.s.ses your windows and goes away if you open the shutter, to the newspaper announcement of a horse for sale--all may be reckoned as correspondence.

How many times, in short, will a wife craftily ask her husband to do such and such commission for her, to go to such and such a shop or house, having previously informed her lover that your presence at such or such a place means yes or no?

On this point the professor acknowledges with shame that there is no possible means of preventing correspondence between lovers. But a little machiavelism on the part of the husband will be much more likely to remedy the difficulty than any coercive measures.

An agreement, which should be kept sacred between married people, is their solemn oath that they will respect each other's sealed letters.

Clever is the husband who makes this pledge on his wedding-day and is able to keep it conscientiously.

In giving your wife unrestrained liberty to write and to receive letters, you will be enabled to discern the moment she begins to correspond with a lover.

But suppose your wife distrusts you and covers with impenetrable clouds the means she takes to conceal from you her correspondence. Is it not then time to display that intellectual power with which we armed you in our Meditation ent.i.tled _Of the Custom House_? The man who does not see when his wife writes to her lover, and when she receives an answer, is a failure as a husband.

The proposed study which you ought to bestow upon the movements, the actions, the gestures, the looks of your wife, will be perhaps troublesome and wearying, but it will not last long; the only point is to discover when your wife and her lover correspond and in what way.

We cannot believe that a husband, even of moderate intelligence, will fail to see through this feminine manoeuvre, when once he suspects its existence.

Meanwhile, you can judge from a single incident what means of police and of restraint remain to you in the event of such a correspondence.

A young lawyer, whose ardent pa.s.sion exemplified certain of the principles dwelt upon in this important part of our work, had married a young person whose love for him was but slight; yet this circ.u.mstance he looked upon as an exceedingly happy one; but at the end of his first year of marriage he perceived that his dear Anna [for Anna was her name]

had fallen in love with the head clerk of a stock-broker.

Adolph was a young man of about twenty-five, handsome in face and as fond of amus.e.m.e.nt as any other celibate. He was frugal, discreet, possessed of an excellent heart, rode well, talked well, had fine black hair always curled, and dressed with taste. In short, he would have done honor and credit to a d.u.c.h.ess. The advocate was ugly, short, stumpy, square-shouldered, mean-looking, and, moreover, a husband. Anna, tall and pretty, had almond eyes, white skin and refined features. She was all love; and pa.s.sion lighted up her glance with a bewitching expression. While her family was poor, Maitre Lebrun had an income of twelve thousand francs. That explains all.