Or else—­but let us stop here.

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

THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY.

Very well!  In this degree of longitude, not far from a tropical sign upon the name of which good taste forbids us to make a jest at once coarse and unworthy of this thoughtful work, a horrible little annoyance appears, ingeniously called the Matrimonial Gadfly, the most provoking of all gnats, mosquitoes, blood-suckers, fleas and scorpions, for no net was ever yet invented that could keep it off.  The gadfly does not immediately sting you; it begins by buzzing in your 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 from thinking so.

“Her husband gave it to her,” resumes Caroline, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Ah!”

“Yes, a four hundred franc dress!  It’s the very finest quality of velvet.”

“Four hundred francs!” cries Adolphe, striking the attitude of the apostle 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 the dress good again, when it is no longer fit to be worn low in the neck.”

Adolphe says to himself, “Caroline wants a dress.”

Poor man!

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

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

“You wouldn’t see Monsieur Deschars behaving like this!  Why don’t you take Monsieur Deschars for a model?”

In short, this idiotic Monsieur Deschars is forever looming up in your household 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 your self-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly sticking it, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety of unforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning terms of endearment, and with the most agreeable little ways.

Adolphe, stung till he finds himself tattooed, finally does what is done by police authorities, by officers of government, by military tacticians.  He casts his eye on Madame de Fischtaminel, who is still young, elegant and a little bit coquettish, and places her (this had been the rascal’s intention for some time) like a blister upon Caroline’s extremely ticklish skin.