Analytical Studies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 609 pages of information about Analytical Studies.

Analytical Studies eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 609 pages of information about Analytical Studies.

Her husband’s bachelor life is to a woman what the phrase, “My dear deceased,” is to a widow’s second husband.  These two stings produce wounds which are never completely healed.

Then Adolphe goes on like General Bonaparte haranguing the Five Hundred:  “We are on a volcano!—­The house no longer has a head, the time to come to an understanding has arrived.—­You talk of happiness, Caroline, but you have compromised, imperiled it by your exactions, you have violated the civil code:  you have mixed yourself up in the discussions of business, and you have invaded the conjugal authority.  —­We must reform our internal affairs.”

Caroline does not shout, like the Five Hundred, “Down with the dictator!” For people never shout a man down, when they feel that they can put him down.

“When I was a bachelor I had none but new stockings!  I had a clean napkin every day on my plate.  The restaurateur only fleeced me of a determinate sum.  I have given up to you my beloved liberty!  What have you done with it?”

“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.

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Project Gutenberg
Analytical Studies from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.