THIRD PERIOD.--_Catastrophe_.--This magnificent affair which was to yield five hundred per cent, in which the most cautious, the best informed persons took part--peers, deputies, bankers--all of them Knights of the Legion of Honor--this venture has been obliged to liquidate! The most sanguine expect to get ten per cent of their capital 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 by consoling you.
"One hundred thousand francs lost! We shall have to practice the strictest economy," you imprudently add.
The jesuitism of woman bursts out at this word "economy." It sets fire to the magazine.
"Ah! that"s what comes of speculating! How is it that _you, ordinarily so prudent_, could go and risk a hundred thousand francs! _You know I was 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 alone take clear views of things. You have risked your children"s bread, though she tried to dissuade you from it.--You cannot say it was for her. Thank G.o.d, she has nothing to reproach herself with. A hundred times a month she alludes to your disaster: "If my husband had not thrown away his money in such and such a scheme, I could have had this and that." "The next time you want to go into an affair, perhaps you"ll consult me!" Adolphe is accused and convicted of having foolishly lost one hundred thousand francs, without an object in view, like a dolt, and without having consulted his wife. Caroline advises her friends not to marry. She complains of the incapacity of men who squander the fortunes of their wives. Caroline is vindictive, she makes herself generally disagreeable. Pity Adolphe! Lament, ye husbands! 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 by various little coquettish phrases. There is about you a certain calmness and tranquillity which always exasperates a lawful wife.
Women see in it a sort of insolence: they look upon the indifference of happiness as the fatuity of confidence, for of course they never imagine 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 which both husband and wife must expect, no husband dares confess that the constant repet.i.tion of the same dish has become wearisome; but his appet.i.te certainly requires the condiments of dress, the ideas excited by absence, the stimulus of an imaginary rivalry.
In short, at this period, you walk very comfortably with your wife on your arm, without pressing hers against your heart with the solicitous and watchful cohesion of a miser grasping his treasure. You gaze carelessly round upon the curiosities in the street, leading your wife in a loose and distracted way, as if you were towing a Norman scow.
Come now, be frank! If, on pa.s.sing your wife, an admirer were gently to press her, accidentally or purposely, would you have the slightest desire to discover his motives? Besides, you say, no woman would seek to bring about a quarrel for such a trifle. Confess this, too, that the expression "such a trifle" is exceedingly flattering to both of you.
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 of your heart and conscience: Caroline has not come up to your expectations. Caroline has imperfections, which, during the high tides of the honey-moon, were concealed under the water, but which the ebb of the gall-moon has laid bare. You have several times run against these breakers, your hopes have been often shipwrecked upon them, more than once your desires--those of a young marrying man--(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden gondolas go to pieces there: the flower of the cargo went to the bottom, the ballast of the marriage remained. In short, to make use of a colloquial expression, as you talk over your marriage with yourself you say, as you look at Caroline, "_She is not what I took her to be!_"
Some evening, at a ball, in society, at a friend"s house, no matter where, you meet a sublime young woman, beautiful, intellectual and kind: with a soul, oh! a soul of celestial purity, and of miraculous beauty! Yes, there is that unchangeable oval cut of face, those features which time will never impair, that graceful and thoughtful brow. The unknown is rich, well-educated, of n.o.ble birth: she will always be what she should be, she knows when to shine, when to remain in the background: she appears in all her glory and power, the being you have dreamed of, your wife that should have been, she whom you feel you could love forever. She would always have flattered your little vanities, she would understand and admirably serve your interests. She is tender and gay, too, this young lady who reawakens all your better feelings, who rekindles your slumbering desires.
You look at Caroline with gloomy despair, and here are the phantom-like thoughts which tap, with wings of a bat, the beak of a vulture, the body of a death"s-head moth, upon the walls of the palace in which, enkindled by desire, glows your brain like a lamp of gold:
FIRST STANZA. Ah, dear me, why did I get married? Fatal idea! I allowed myself to be caught by a small amount of cash. And is it really over? Cannot I have another wife? Ah, the Turks manage things better! It is plain enough that the author of the Koran lived in the desert!
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 it be speedily done for her sake and for mine. The angel has lived long enough.
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 her perfectly horrible: she speaks to you, but you answer in monosyllables. She says, "What is the matter?" and you answer, "Nothing." She coughs, you advise her to see the doctor in the morning. Medicine has its hazards.
FOURTH STANZA. I have been told that a physician, poorly paid by the heirs of his deceased patient, imprudently exclaimed, "What! they cut down my bill, when they owe me forty thousand a year." _I_ would not haggle 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 an interest in her. While she is preparing to retire, you lie stretched out upon the sofa. You contemplate the divine apparition which opens to you the ivory portals of your castles in the air. Delicious ecstasy! "Tis the sublime young woman that you see before you! She is as white as the sail of the treasure-laden galleon as it enters the harbor of Cadiz. Your wife, happy in your admiration, now understands your former taciturnity. You still see, with closed eyes, the sublime young woman; she is the burden of your thoughts, and you say aloud:
FIFTH AND LAST STANZA. Divine! Adorable! Can there be another woman like her? Rose of Night! Column of ivory! Celestial maiden! Morning and Evening Star!
Everyone says his prayers; you have said four.
The next morning, your wife is delightful, she coughs no more, she has no need of a doctor; if she dies, it will be of good health; you launched four maledictions upon her, in the name of your sublime young woman, and four times she blessed you for it. Caroline does not know that in the depths of your heart there wriggles a little red fish like a crocodile, concealed beneath conjugal love like the other would be hid in a basin.
A few days before, your wife had spoken of you in rather equivocal terms to Madame de Fischtaminel: your fair friend comes to visit her, and Caroline compromises you by a long and humid gaze; she praises you and says she never was happier.
You rush out in a rage, you are beside yourself, and are glad to meet a friend, that you may work off your bile.
"Don"t you ever marry, George; it"s better to see your heirs carrying away your furniture while the death-rattle is in your throat, better to go through an agony of two hours without a drop to cool your tongue, better to be a.s.sa.s.sinated by inquiries about your will by a nurse 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 saved from the tortures to which a criminal pa.s.sion was leading you. You fall back again into the purgatory of your married bliss; but you begin to be attentive to Madame de Fischtaminel, with whom you were dreadfully in love, without being able to get near her, while you were a bachelor.
OBSERVATIONS.
When you have arrived at this point in the lat.i.tude or longitude of the matrimonial ocean, there appears a slight chronic, intermittent affection, 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 be sure he has attained this nautical point? And can the danger be avoided?"
You may arrive at this point, look you, as easily after ten months as ten years of wedlock; it depends upon the speed of the vessel, its style of rigging, upon the trade winds, the force of the currents, and especially upon the composition of the crew. You have this advantage over the mariner, that he has but one method of calculating his position, while husbands have at least a thousand of reckoning theirs.
EXAMPLE: Caroline, your late darling, your late treasure, who is now merely your humdrum wife, leans much too heavily upon your arm while walking on the boulevard, or else says it is much more elegant not to take your arm at all;
Or else she notices men, older or younger as the case may be, dressed with more or less taste, whereas she formerly saw no one whatever, though the sidewalk was black with hats and traveled by more boots than 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 a gesture, a look, an accent which caused her admirers to think, "Well, here"s a happy woman at last!" This last exclamation of a woman is suitable for two eras,--first, while she is sincere; second, while she is hypocritical, with her "Ah! "tis Adolphe!" When she exclaims, "It"s only my husband," she no longer deigns to play a part.
Or, if you come home somewhat late--at eleven, or at midnight--you find her--snoring! Odious symptom!
Or else she puts on her stockings in your presence. Among English couples, this never happens but once in a lady"s married life; the next day she leaves for the Continent with some captain or other, and no 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 are weatherwise.
THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY.