“You are mistaken, madame,” said the Provencal, “it was her husband.”
“The speaker is called to order,” cried the president, “and condemned to dine the whole party, for having used the word husband.”
The Provencal was completely refuted by a lady who undertook to prove that women show much more self-sacrifice in love than men; that lovers cost very dear, and that the honest woman may consider herself very fortunate if she gets off with spending on them two thousand francs for a single year. The discussion was in danger of degenerating into an exchange of personalities, when a division was called for. The conclusions of the committee were adopted by vote. The conclusions were, in substance, that the amount for presents between lovers during the year should be reckoned at five hundred francs, but that in this computation should be included: (1) the expense of expeditions into the country; (2) the pharmaceutical expenses, occasioned by the colds caught from walking in the damp pathways of parks, and in leaving the theatre, which expenses are veritable presents; (3) the carrying of letters, and law expenses; (4) journeys, and expenses whose items are forgotten, without counting the follies committed by the spenders; inasmuch as, according to the investigations of the committee, it had been proved that most of a man’s extravagant expenditure profited the opera girls, rather than the married women. The conclusion arrived at from this pecuniary calculation was that, in one way or another, a passion costs nearly fifteen hundred francs a year, which were required to meet the expense borne more unequally by lovers, but which would not have occurred, but for their attachment. There was also a sort of unanimity in the opinion of the council that this was the lowest annual figure which would cover the cost of a passion. Now, my dear sir, since we have proved, by the statistics of our conjugal calculations [See Meditations I, II, and III.] and proved irrefragably, that there exists a floating total of at least fifteen hundred thousand unlawful passions, it follows:
That the criminal conversations of a third among the French population contribute a sum of nearly three thousand millions to that vast circulation of money, the true blood of society, of which the budget is the heart;
That the honest woman not only gives life to the children of the peerage, but also to its financial funds;
That manufacturers owe their prosperity to this systolic movement;
That the honest woman is a being essentially budgetative, and active as a consumer;
That the least decline in public love would involve incalculable miseries to the treasury, and to men of invested fortunes;
That a husband has at least a third of his fortune invested in the inconstancy of his wife, etc.
I am well aware that you are going to open your mouth and talk to me about manners, politics, good and evil. But, my dear victim of the Minotaur, is not happiness the object which all societies should set before them? Is it not this axiom that makes these wretched kings give themselves so much trouble about their people? Well, the honest woman has not, like them, thrones, gendarmes and tribunals; she has only a bed to offer; but if our four hundred thousand women can, by this ingenious machine, make a million celibates happy, do not they attain in a mysterious manner, and without making any fuss, the end aimed at by a government, namely, the end of giving the largest possible amount of happiness to the mass of mankind?
“Yes, but the annoyances, the children, the troubles — ”
Ah, you must permit me to proffer the consolatory thought with which one of our wittiest caricaturists closes his satiric observations: “Man is not perfect!” It is sufficient, therefore, that our institutions have no more disadvantages than advantages in order to be reckoned excellent; for the human race is not placed, socially speaking, between the good and the bad, but between the bad and the worse. Now if the work, which we are at present on the point of concluding, has had for its object the diminution of the worse, as it is found in matrimonial institutions, in laying bare the errors and absurdities due to our manners and our prejudices, we shall certainly have won one of the fairest titles that can be put forth by a man to a place among the benefactors of humanity. Has not the author made it his aim, by advising husbands, to make women more self-restrained and consequently to impart more violence to passions, more money to the treasury, more life to commerce and agriculture? Thanks to this last Meditation he can flatter himself that he has strictly kept the vow of eclecticism, which he made in projecting the work, and he hopes he has marshaled all details of the case, and yet like an attorney-general refrained from expressing his personal opinion. And really what do you want with an axiom in the present matter? Do you wish that this book should be a mere development of the last opinion held by Tronchet, who in his closing days thought that the law of marriage had been drawn up less in the interest of husbands than of children? I also wish it very much. Would you rather desire that this book should serve as proof to the peroration of the Capuchin, who preached before Anne of Austria, and when he saw the queen and her ladies overwhelmed by his triumphant arguments against their frailty, said as he came down from the pulpit of truth, “Now you are all honorable women, and it is we who unfortunately are sons of Samaritan women”? I have no objection to that either. You may draw what conclusion you please; for I think it is very difficult to put forth two contrary opinions, without both of them containing some grains of truth. But the book has not been written either for or against marriage; all I have thought you needed was an exact description of it. If an examination of the machine shall lead us to make one wheel of it more perfect; if by scouring away some rust we have given more elastic movement to its mechanism; then give his wage to the workman. If the author has had the impertinence to utter truths too harsh for you, if he has too often spoken of rare and exceptional facts as universal, if he has omitted the commonplaces which have been employed from time immemorial to offer women the incense of flattery, oh, let him be crucified! But do not impute to him any motive of hostility to the institution itself; he is concerned merely for men and women. He knows that from the moment marriage ceases to defeat the purpose of marriage, it is unassailable; and, after all, if there do arise serious complaints against this institution, it is perhaps because man has no memory excepting for his disasters, that he accuses his wife, as he accuses his life, for marriage is but a life within a life. Yet people whose habit it is to take their opinions from newspapers would perhaps despise a book in which they see the mania of eclecticism pushed too far; for then they absolutely demand something in the shape of a peroration, it is not hard to find one for them. And since the words of Napoleon served to start this book, why should it not end as it began? Before the whole Council of State the First Consul pronounced the following startling phrase, in which he at the same time eulogized and satirized marriage, and summed up the contents of this book:
“If a man never grew old, I would never wish him to have a wife!”
POSTSCRIPT.
“And so you are going to be married?” asked the duchess of the author who had read his manuscript to her.
She was one of those ladies to whom the author has already paid his respects in the introduction of this work.
“Certainly, madame,” I replied. “To meet a woman who has courage enough to become mine, would satisfy the wildest of my hopes.”
“Is this resignation or infatuation?”
“That is my affair.”
“Well, sir, as you are doctor of conjugal arts and sciences, allow me to tell you a little Oriental fable, that I read in a certain sheet, which is published annually in the form of an almanac. At the beginning of the Empire ladies used to play at a game in which no one accepted a present from his or her partner in the game, without saying the word, Diadeste. A game lasted, as you may well suppose, during a week, and the point was to catch some one receiving some trifle or other without pronouncing the sacramental word.”
“Even a kiss?”
“Oh, I have won the Diadeste twenty times in that way,” she laughingly replied.
“It was, I be
lieve, from the playing of this game, whose origin is Arabian or Chinese, that my apologue takes its point. But if I tell you,” she went on, putting her finger to her nose, with a charming air of coquetry, “let me contribute it as a finale to your work.”
“This would indeed enrich me. You have done me so many favors already, that I cannot repay — ”
She smiled slyly, and replied as follows:
A philosopher had compiled a full account of all the tricks that women could possibly play, and in order to verify it, he always carried it about with him. One day he found himself in the course of his travels near an encampment of Arabs. A young woman, who had seated herself under the shade of a palm tree, rose on his approach. She kindly asked him to rest himself in her tent, and he could not refuse. Her husband was then absent. Scarcely had the traveler seated himself on a soft rug, when the graceful hostess offered him fresh dates, and a cup of milk; he could not help observing the rare beauty of her hands as she did so. But, in order to distract his mind from the sensations roused in him by the fair young Arabian girl, whose charms were most formidable, the sage took his book, and began to read.
The seductive creature piqued by this slight said to him in a melodious voice:
“That book must be very interesting since it seems to be the sole object worthy of your attention. Would it be taking a liberty to ask what science it treats of?”
The philosopher kept his eyes lowered as he replied:
“The subject of this book is beyond the comprehension of ladies.”
This rebuff excited more than ever the curiosity of the young Arabian woman. She put out the prettiest little foot that had ever left its fleeting imprint on the shifting sands of the desert. The philosopher was perturbed, and his eyes were too powerfully tempted to resist wandering from these feet, which betokened so much, up to the bosom, which was still more ravishingly fair; and soon the flame of his admiring glance was mingled with the fire that sparkled in the pupils of the young Asiatic. She asked again the name of the book in tones so sweet that the philosopher yielded to the fascination, and replied:
“I am the author of the book; but the substance of it is not mine: it contains an account of all the ruses and stratagems of women.”
“What! Absolutely all?” said the daughter of the desert.
“Yes, all! And it has been only by a constant study of womankind that
I have come to regard them without fear.”
“Ah!” said the young Arabian girl, lowering the long lashes of her white eyelids.
Then, suddenly darting the keenest of her glances at the pretended sage, she made him in one instant forget the book and all its contents. And now our philosopher was changed to the most passionate of men. Thinking he saw in the bearing of the young woman a faint trace of coquetry, the stranger was emboldened to make an avowal. How could he resist doing so? The sky was blue, the sand blazed in the distance like a scimitar of gold, the wind of the desert breathed love, and the woman of Arabia seemed to reflect all the fire with which she was surrounded; her piercing eyes were suffused with a mist; and by a slight nod of the head she seemed to make the luminous atmosphere undulate, as she consented to listen to the stranger’s words of love. The sage was intoxicated with delirious hopes, when the young woman, hearing in the distance the gallop of a horse which seemed to fly, exclaimed:
“We are lost! My husband is sure to catch us. He is jealous as a tiger, and more pitiless than one. In the name of the prophet, if you love your life, conceal yourself in this chest!”
The author, frightened out of his wits, seeing no other way of getting out of a terrible fix, jumped into the box, and crouched down there. The woman closed down the lid, locked it, and took the key. She ran to meet her husband, and after some caresses which put him into a good humor, she said:
“I must relate to you a very singular adventure I have just had.”
“I am listening, my gazelle,” replied the Arab, who sat down on a rug and crossed his feet after the Oriental manner.
“There arrived here to-day a kind of philosopher,” she began, “he professes to have compiled a book which describes all the wiles of which my sex is capable; and then this sham sage made love to me.”
“Well, go on!” cried the Arab.
“I listened to his avowal. He was young, ardent — and you came just in time to save my tottering virtue.”
The Arab leaped to his feet like a lion, and drew his scimitar with a shout of fury. The philosopher heard all from the depths of the chest and consigned to Hades his book, and all the men and women of Arabia Petraea.
“Fatima!” cried the husband, “if you would save your life, answer me
— Where is the traitor?”
Terrified at the tempest which she had roused, Fatima threw herself at her husband’s feet, and trembling beneath the point of his sword, she pointed out the chest with a prompt though timid glance of her eye. Then she rose to her feet, as if in shame, and taking the key from her girdle presented it to the jealous Arab; but, just as he was about to open the chest, the sly creature burst into a peal of laughter. Faroun stopped with a puzzled expression, and looked at his wife in amazement.
“So I shall have my fine chain of gold, after all!” she cried, dancing for joy. “You have lost the Diadeste. Be more mindful next time.”
The husband, thunderstruck, let fall the key, and offered her the longed-for chain on bended knee, and promised to bring to his darling Fatima all the jewels brought by the caravan in a year, if she would refrain from winning the Diadeste by such cruel stratagems. Then, as he was an Arab, and did not like forfeiting a chain of gold, although his wife had fairly won it, he mounted his horse again, and galloped off, to complain at his will, in the desert, for he loved Fatima too well to let her see his annoyance. The young woman then drew forth the philosopher from the chest, and gravely said to him, “Do not forget, Master Doctor, to put this feminine trick into your collection.”
“Madame,” said I to the duchess, “I understand! If I marry, I am bound to be unexpectedly outwitted by some infernal trick or other; but I shall in that case, you may be quite sure, furnish a model household for the admiration of my contemporaries.”
PARIS, 1824-29.
LITTLE MISERIES OF CONJUGAL LIFE
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
Petites misères de la vie conjugale was initially published in 1846. It is composed of thirty-seven chapters, published separately in various magazines and journals, offering a series of burlesque sketches centred in a young bourgeois household, belonging to Adolphe and Caroline.
An original illustration
CONTENTS
THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL.
REVELATIONS.
AXIOMS.
THE ATTENTIONS OF A WIFE.
SMALL VEXATIONS.
THE ULTIMATUM.
WOMEN’S LOGIC.
THE JESUITISM OF WOMEN.
MEMORIES AND REGRETS.
OBSERVATIONS.
THE MATRIMONIAL GADFLY.
HARD LABOR.
FORCED SMILES.
NOSOGRAPHY OF THE VILLA.
TROUBLE WITHIN TROUBLE.
A HOUSEHOLD REVOLUTION.
THE ART OF BEING A VICTIM.
THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN.
A SOLO ON THE HEARSE.
PART SECOND
PREFACE
HUSBANDS DURING THE SECOND MONTH.
DISAPPOINTED AMBITION.
I. CHODOREILLE THE GREAT.
II. ANOTHER GLANCE AT CHODOREILLE.
THE PANGS OF INNOCENCE.
THE UNIVERSAL AMADIS.
WITHOUT AN OCCUPATION.
INDISCRETIONS.
BRUTAL DISCLOSURES.
A TRUCE.
USELESS CARE.
SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE.
THE DOMESTIC TYRANT.
THE AVOWAL.
HUMILIATIONS.
THE LAST QUARREL.
PAPERS RELATING TO CHAUMONTEL’S AFFAIR.
&nb
sp; A SIGNAL FAILURE.
THE CHESTNUTS IN THE FIRE.
ULTIMA RATIO.
COMMENTARY.
IN WHICH IS EXPLAINED LA FELICITA OF FINALES.
THE UNKINDEST CUT OF ALL.
Is it a petty or a profound trouble? I knew not; it is profound for your sons-in-law or daughters-in-law, but exceedingly petty for you.
“Petty! You must be joking; why, a child costs terribly dear!” exclaims a ten-times-too-happy husband, at the baptism of his eleventh, called the little last newcomer, — a phrase with which women beguile their families.
“What trouble is this?” you ask me. Well! this is, like many petty troubles of married life, a blessing for some one.
You have, four months since, married off your daughter, whom we will call by the sweet name of CAROLINE, and whom we will make the type of all wives. Caroline is, like all other young ladies, very charming, and you have found for her a husband who is either a lawyer, a captain, an engineer, a judge, or perhaps a young viscount. But he is more likely to be what sensible families must seek, — the ideal of their desires — the only son of a rich landed proprietor. (See the Preface.)
This phoenix we will call ADOLPHE, whatever may be his position in the world, his age, and the color of his hair.
The lawyer, the captain, the engineer, the judge, in short, the son-in-law, Adolphe, and his family, have seen in Miss Caroline:
I. — Miss Caroline;
II. — The only daughter of your wife and you.
Here, as in the Chamber of Deputies, we are compelled to call for a division of the house:
1. — As to your wife.
Your wife is to inherit the property of a maternal uncle, a gouty old fellow whom she humors, nurses, caresses, and muffles up; to say nothing of her father’s fortune. Caroline has always adored her uncle, — her uncle who trotted her on his knee, her uncle who — her uncle whom — her uncle, in short, — whose property is estimated at two hundred thousand.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1312