“Am I then so very wrong, Adolphe, to have sought to spare you numerous cares?” says Caroline, taking an attitude before her husband.  “Take the key of the money-box back,—­but do you know what will happen?  I am ashamed, but you will compel me to go on to the stage to get the merest necessaries of life.  Is this what you want?  Degrade your wife, or bring in conflict two contrary, hostile interests—­”

Such, for three quarters of the French people is an exact definition of marriage.

“Be perfectly easy, dear,” resumes Caroline, seating herself in her chair like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, “I will never ask you for anything.  I am not a beggar!  I know what I’ll do—­you don’t know me yet.”

“Well, what will you do?” asks Adolphe; “it seems impossible to joke or have an explanation with you women.  What will you do?”

“It doesn’t concern you at all.”

“Excuse me, madame, quite the contrary.  Dignity, honor—­”

“Oh, have no fear of that, sir.  For your sake more than for my own, I will keep it a dead secret.”

“Come, Caroline, my own Carola, what do you mean to do?”

Caroline darts a viper-like glance at Adolphe, who recoils and proceeds to walk up and down the room.

“There now, tell me, what will you do?” he repeats after much too prolonged a silence.

“I shall go to work, sir!”

At this sublime declaration, Adolphe executes a movement in retreat, detecting a bitter exasperation, and feeling the sharpness of a north wind which had never before blown in the matrimonial chamber.

THE ART OF BEING A VICTIM.

On and after the Revolution, our vanquished Caroline adopts an infernal system, the effect of which is to make you regret your victory every hour.  She becomes the opposition!  Should Adolphe have one more such triumph, he would appear before the Court of Assizes, accused of having smothered his wife between two mattresses, like Shakespeare’s Othello.  Caroline puts on the air of a martyr; her submission is positively killing.  On every occasion she assassinates Adolphe with a “Just as you like!” uttered in tones whose sweetness is something fearful.  No elegiac poet could compete with Caroline, who utters elegy upon elegy:  elegy in action, elegy in speech:  her smile is elegiac, her silence is elegiac, her gestures are elegiac.  Here are a few examples, wherein every household will find some of its impressions recorded: 

AFTER BREAKFAST.  “Caroline, we go to-night to the Deschars’ grand ball you know.”

“Yes, love.”

AFTER DINNER.  “What, not dressed yet, Caroline?” exclaims Adolphe, who has just made his appearance, magnificently equipped.

He finds Caroline arrayed in a gown fit for an elderly lady of strong conversational powers, a black moire with an old-fashioned fan-waist.  Flowers, too badly imitated to deserve the name of artificial, give a gloomy aspect to a head of hair which the chambermaid has carelessly arranged.  Caroline’s gloves have already seen wear and tear.