“How is it with you, my dear madame?”

“I, thank heaven, have passed the period; and you?”

“I really hope I have, too!” says your wife.

“You can marry Caroline,” says Adolphe’s mother to your future son-in-law; “Caroline will be the sole heiress of her mother, of her uncle, and her grandfather.”

2.—­As to yourself.

You are also the heir of your maternal grandfather, a good old man whose possessions will surely fall to you, for he has grown imbecile, and is therefore incapable of making a will.

You are an amiable man, but you have been very dissipated in your youth.  Besides, you are fifty-nine years old, and your head is bald, resembling a bare knee in the middle of a gray wig.

III.—­A dowry of three hundred thousand.

IV.—­Caroline’s only sister, a little dunce of twelve, a sickly child, who bids fair to fill an early grave.

V.—­Your own fortune, father-in-law (in certain kinds of society they say papa father-in-law) yielding an income of twenty thousand, and which will soon be increased by an inheritance.

VI.—­Your wife’s fortune, which will be increased by two inheritances —­from her uncle and her grandfather.  In all, thus: 

Three inheritances and interest, 750,000
Your fortune, 250,000
Your wife’s fortune, 250,000

          
                                                              _________

Total, 1,250,000

which surely cannot take wing!

Such is the autopsy of all those brilliant marriages that conduct their processions of dancers and eaters, in white gloves, flowering at the button-hole, with bouquets of orange flowers, furbelows, veils, coaches and coach-drivers, from the magistrate’s to the church, from the church to the banquet, from the banquet to the dance, from the dance to the nuptial chamber, to the music of the orchestra and the accompaniment of the immemorial pleasantries uttered by relics of dandies, for are there not, here and there in society, relics of dandies, as there are relics of English horses?  To be sure, and such is the osteology of the most amorous intent.

The majority of the relatives have had a word to say about this marriage.

Those on the side of the bridegroom: 

“Adolphe has made a good thing of it.”

Those on the side of the bride: 

“Caroline has made a splendid match.  Adolphe is an only son, and will have an income of sixty thousand, some day or other!”

Some time afterwards, the happy judge, the happy engineer, the happy captain, the happy lawyer, the happy only son of a rich landed proprietor, in short Adolphe, comes to dine with you, accompanied by his family.

Your daughter Caroline is exceedingly proud of the somewhat rounded form of her waist.  All women display an innocent artfulness, the first time they find themselves facing motherhood.  Like a soldier who makes a brilliant toilet for his first battle, they love to play the pale, the suffering; they rise in a certain manner, and walk with the prettiest affectation.  While yet flowers, they bear a fruit; they enjoy their maternity by anticipation.  All those little ways are exceedingly charming—­the first time.