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.