"We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as a tiger, and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if you love your life, conceal yourself in this chest!"
The author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of getting out of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there.
The woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran to meet her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a good humor, she said:
"I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had."
"I am listening, my gazelle," replied the Arab, who sat down on a rug and crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.
"There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher," she began, "he professes to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles of which my s.e.x is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me."
"Well, go on!" cried the Arab.
"I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent--and you came just in time to save my tottering virtue."
The Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with a shout of fury. The philosopher heard all from the depths of the chest and consigned to Hades his book, and all the men and women of Arabia Petraea.
"Fatima!" cried the husband, "if you would save your life, answer me --Where is the traitor?"
Terrified at the tempest which she had roused, Fatima threw herself at her husband"s feet, and trembling beneath the point of his sword, she pointed out the chest with a prompt though timid glance of her eye.
Then she rose to her feet, as if in shame, and taking the key from her girdle presented it to the jealous Arab; but, just as he was about to open the chest, the sly creature burst into a peal of laughter. Faroun stopped with a puzzled expression, and looked at his wife in amazement.
"So I shall have my fine chain of gold, after all!" she cried, dancing for joy. "You have lost the _Diadeste_. Be more mindful next time."
The husband, thunderstruck, let fall the key, and offered her the longed-for chain on bended knee, and promised to bring to his darling Fatima all the jewels brought by the caravan in a year, if she would refrain from winning the _Diadeste_ by such cruel stratagems. Then, as he was an Arab, and did not like forfeiting a chain of gold, although his wife had fairly won it, he mounted his horse again, and galloped off, to complain at his will, in the desert, for he loved Fatima too well to let her see his annoyance. The young woman then drew forth the philosopher from the chest, and gravely said to him, "Do not forget, Master Doctor, to put this feminine trick into your collection."
"Madame," said I to the d.u.c.h.ess, "I understand! If I marry, I am bound to be unexpectedly outwitted by some infernal trick or other; but I shall in that case, you may be quite sure, furnish a model household for the admiration of my contemporaries."
PARIS, 1824-29.
PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
PART FIRST
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 for your 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 his eleventh, called the little last newcomer,--a phrase with which women beguile their families.
"What trouble is this?" you ask me. Well! this is, like many petty troubles of married life, a blessing for some one.
You have, four months since, married off your daughter, whom we will call by the sweet name of CAROLINE, and whom we will make the type of all wives. Caroline is, like all other young ladies, very charming, and you have found for her a husband who is either a lawyer, a captain, an engineer, a judge, or perhaps a young viscount. But he is more likely to be what sensible families must seek,--the ideal of their desires--the only son of a rich landed proprietor. (See the _Preface_.)