In short, as the greatest pleasure of the respondents is to see their Oedipus mystified, as each word guessed by you throws them into fits of laughter, superior men, perceiving no word that will fit all the explanations, will sooner give it up than make three unsuccessful attempts.  According to the law of this innocent game you are condemned to return to the parlor after leaving a forfeit; but you are so exceedingly puzzled by your wife’s answers, that you ask what the word was.

“Mal,” exclaims a young miss.

You comprehend everything but your wife’s replies:  she has not played the game.  Neither Madame Deschars, nor any one of the young women understand.  She has cheated.  You revolt, there is an insurrection among the girls and young women.  They seek and are puzzled.  You want an explanation, and every one participates in your desire.

“In what sense did you understand the word, my dear?” you say to Caroline.

“Why, male!” [male.]

Madame Deschars bites her lips and manifests the greatest displeasure; the young women blush and drop their eyes; the little girls open theirs, nudge each other and prick up their ears.  Your feet are glued to the carpet, and you have so much salt in your throat that you believe in a repetition of the event which delivered Lot from his wife.

You see an infernal life before you; society is out of the question.

To remain at home with this triumphant stupidity is equivalent to condemnation to the state’s prison.

Axiom.—­Moral tortures exceed physical sufferings by all the difference which exists between the soul and the body.

THE ATTENTIONS OF A WIFE.

Among the keenest pleasures of bachelor life, every man reckons the independence of his getting up.  The fancies of the morning compensate for the glooms of evening.  A bachelor turns over and over in his bed:  he is free to gape loud enough to justify apprehensions of murder, and to scream at a pitch authorizing the suspicion of joys untold.  He can forget his oaths of the day before, let the fire burn upon the hearth and the candle sink to its socket,—­in short, go to sleep again in spite of pressing work.  He can curse the expectant boots which stand holding their black mouths open at him and pricking up their ears.  He can pretend not to see the steel hooks which glitter in a sunbeam which has stolen through the curtains, can disregard the sonorous summons of the obstinate clock, can bury himself in a soft place, saying:  “Yes, I was in a hurry, yesterday, but am so no longer to-day.  Yesterday was a dotard.  To-day is a sage:  between them stands the night which brings wisdom, the night which gives light.  I ought to go, I ought to do it, I promised I would—­I am weak, I know.  But how can I resist the downy creases of my bed?  My feet feel flaccid, I think I must be sick, I am too happy just here.  I long to see the ethereal horizon of my dreams again, those women without claws, those winged beings and their obliging ways.  In short, I have found the grain of salt to put upon the tail of that bird that was always flying away:  the coquette’s feet are caught in the line.  I have her now—­”