Man goes from aversion to love; but if he has begun by loving, and
afterwards comes to feel aversion, he never returns to love.
In certain human organisms the feelings are dwarfed, as the thought may
be in certain sterile imaginations. Thus, just as some minds have the
faculty of comprehending the connections existing between different
things without formal deduction; and as they have the faculty of
seizing upon each formula separately, without combining them, or
without the power of insight, comparison and expression; so in the same
way, different souls may have more or less imperfect ideas of the
various sentiments. Talent in love, as in every other art, consists in
the power of forming a conception combined with the power of carrying
it out. The world is full of people who sing airs, but who omit the
_ritornello_, who have quarters of an idea, as they have quarters of
sentiment, but who can no more co-ordinate the movements of their
affections than of their thoughts. In a word, they are incomplete.
Unite a fine intelligence with a dwarfed intelligence and you
precipitate a disaster; for it is necessary that equilibrium be
preserved in everything.
We leave to the philosophers of the boudoir or to the sages of the back
parlor to investigate the thousand ways in which men of different
temperaments, intellects, social positions and fortunes disturb this
equilibrium. Meanwhile we will proceed to examine the last cause for
the setting of the honeymoon and the rising of the Red-moon.
There is in life one principle more potent than life itself. It is a
movement whose celerity springs from an unknown motive power. Man is no
more acquainted with the secret of this revolution than the earth is
aware of that which causes her rotation. A certain something, which I
gladly call the current of life, bears along our choicest thoughts,
makes use of most people’s will and carries us on in spite of
ourselves. Thus, a man of common-sense, who never fails to pay his
bills, if he is a merchant, a man who has been able to escape death, or
what perhaps is more trying, sickness, by the observation of a certain
easy but daily regimen, is completely and duly nailed up between the
four planks of his coffin, after having said every evening: “Dear me!
to-morrow I will not forget my pills!” How are we to explain this magic
spell which rules all the affairs of life? Do men submit to it from a
want of energy? Men who have the strongest wills are subject to it. Is
it default of memory? People who possess this faculty in the highest
degree yield to its fascination.
Every one can recognize the operation of this influence in the case of
his neighbor, and it is one of the things which exclude the majority of
husbands from the honeymoon. It is thus that the wise man, survivor of
all reefs and shoals, such as we have pointed out, sometimes falls into
the snares which he himself has set.
I have myself noticed that man deals with marriage and its dangers in
very much the same way that he deals with wigs; and perhaps the
following phases of thought concerning wigs may furnish a formula for
human life in general.
FIRST EPOCH.—Is it possible that I shall ever have white hair?
SECOND EPOCH.—In any case, if I have white hair, I shall never wear a
wig. Good Lord! what is more ugly than a wig?
One morning you hear a young voice, which love much oftener makes to
vibrate than lulls to silence, exclaiming:
“Well, I declare! You have a white hair!”
THIRD EPOCH.—Why not wear a well-made wig which people would not
notice? There is a certain merit in deceiving everybody; besides, a wig
keeps you warm, prevents taking cold, etc.
FOURTH EPOCH.—The wig is so skillfully put on that you deceive every
one who does not know you.
The wig takes up all your attention, and _amour-propre_ makes you every
morning as busy as the most skillful hairdresser.
FIFTH EPOCH.—The neglected wig. “Good heavens! How tedious it is, to
have to go with bare head every evening, and to curl one’s wig every
morning!”
SIXTH EPOCH.—The wig allows certain white hairs to escape; it is put on
awry and the observer perceives on the back of your neck a white line,
which contrasts with the deep tints pushed back by the collar of your
coat.
SEVENTH EPOCH.—Your wig is as scraggy as dog’s tooth grass; and —excuse
the expression—you are making fun of your wig.
“Sir,” said one of the most powerful feminine intelligences which have
condescended to enlighten me on some of the most obscure passages in my
book, “what do you mean by this wig?”
“Madame,” I answered, “when a man falls into a mood of indifference
with regard to his wig, he is,—he is—what your husband probably is
not.”
“But my husband is not—” (she paused and thought for a moment). “He is
not amiable; he is not—well, he is not—of an even temper; he is not—”
“Then, madame, he would doubtless be indifferent to his wig!”
We looked at each other, she with a well-assumed air of dignity, I with
a suppressed smile.
“I see,” said I, “that we must pay special respect to the ears of the
little sex, for they are the only chaste things about them.”
I assumed the attitude of a man who has something of importance to
disclose, and the fair dame lowered her eyes, as if she had some reason
to blush.
“Madame, in these days a minister is not hanged, as once upon a time,
for saying yes or no; a Chateaubriand would scarcely torture Francoise
de Foix, and we wear no longer at our side a long sword ready to avenge
an insult. Now in a century when civilization has made such rapid
progress, when we can learn a science in twenty-four lessons,
everything must follow this race after perfection. We can no longer
speak the manly, rude, coarse language of our ancestors. The age in
which are fabricated such fine, such brilliant stuffs, such elegant
furniture, and when are made such rich porcelains, must needs be the
age of periphrase and circumlocution. We must try, therefore, to coin a
new word in place of the comic expression which Moliere used; since the
language of this great man, as a contemporary author has said, is too
free for ladies who find gauze too thick for their garments. But people
of the world know, as well as the learned, how the Greeks had an innate
taste for mysteries. That poetic nation knew well how to invest with
the tints of fable the antique traditions of their history. At the
voice of their rhapsodists together with their poets and romancers,
kings became gods and their adventures of gallantry were transformed
into immortal allegories. According to M. Chompre, licentiate in law,
the classic author of the _Dictionary of Mythology_, the labyrinth was
‘an enclosure planted with trees and adorned with buildings arranged in
such a way that when a young man once entered, he could no more find
his way out.’ Here and there flowery thickets were presented to his
view, but in the midst of a multitude of alleys, which crossed and
recrossed his path and bore the appearance of a uniform passage, among
the briars, rocks and thorns, the patient found himself in combat with
an animal called the Minotaur.
“Now, madame, if you will allow me the honor of calling to your mind
the fact that the Minotaur was of all known beasts that which Mythology
distinguishes as the most dangerous; that in order to save themselves
from his ravages, the Athenians were bound to deliver to him, every
single year, fifty virgins; you will perhaps escape the error of good
M. Chompre, who saw in the labyrinth nothing but an English garden; and
you will recognize in this ingenious fable a refined allegory, or we
may better say a faithful and fearful image of the dangers of marriage.
The paintings recently discovered at Herculaneum have served to confirm
this opinion. And, as a matter of fact, learned men have for a long
time believed, in accordance with the writings of certain authors, that
the Minotaur was an animal half-man, half-bull; but the fifth panel of
ancient paintings at Herculaneum represents to us this allegorical
monster with a body entirely human; and, to take away all vestige of
doubt, he lies crushed at the feet of Theseus. Now, my dear madame, why
should we not ask Mythology to come and rescue us from that hypocrisy
which is gaining ground with us and hinders us from laughing as our
fathers laughed? And thus, since in the world a young lady does not
very well know how to spread the veil under which an honest woman hides
her behavior, in a contingency which our grandfathers would have
roughly explained by a single word, you, like a crowd of beautiful but
prevaricating ladies, you content yourselves with saying, ‘Ah! yes, she
is very amiable, but,’—but what?—‘but she is often very inconsistent—.’
I have for a long time tried to find out the meaning of this last word,
and, above all, the figure of rhetoric by which you make it express the
opposite of that which it signifies; but all my researches have been in
vain. Vert-Vert used the word last, and was unfortunately addressed to
the innocent nuns whose infidelities did not in any way infringe the
honor of the men. When a woman is _inconsistent_ the husband must be,
according to me, _minotaurized_. If the minotaurized man is a fine
fellow, if he enjoys a certain esteem,—and many husbands really deserve
to be pitied,—then in speaking of him, you say in a pathetic voice, ‘M.
A—- is a very estimable man, his wife is exceedingly pretty, but they
say he is not happy in his domestic relations.’ Thus, madame, the
estimable man who is unhappy in his domestic relations, the man who has
an inconsistent wife, or the husband who is minotaurized are simply
husbands as they appear in Moliere. Well, then, O goddess of modern
taste, do not these expressions seem to you characterized by a
transparency chaste enough for anybody?”
“Ah! mon Dieu!” she answered, laughing, “if the thing is the same, what
does it matter whether it be expressed in two syllables or in a
hundred?”
She bade me good-bye, with an ironical nod and disappeared, doubtless
to join the countesses of my preface and all the metaphorical
creatures, so often employed by romance-writers as agents for the
recovery or composition of ancient manuscripts.
As for you, the more numerous and the more real creatures who read my
book, if there are any among you who make common cause with my conjugal
champion, I give you notice that you will not at once become unhappy in
your domestic relations. A man arrives at this conjugal condition not
suddenly, but insensibly and by degrees. Many husbands have even
remained unfortunate in their domestic relations during their whole
life and have never known it. This domestic revolution develops itself
in accordance with fixed rules; for the revolutions of the honeymoon
are as regular as the phases of the moon in heaven, and are the same in
every married house. Have we not proved that moral nature, like
physical nature, has its laws?
Your young wife will never take a lover, as we have elsewhere said,
without making serious reflections. As soon as the honeymoon wanes, you
will find that you have aroused in her a sentiment of pleasure which
you have not satisfied; you have opened to her the book of life; and
she has derived an excellent idea from the prosaic dullness which
distinguishes your complacent love, of the poetry which is the natural
result when souls and pleasures are in accord. Like a timid bird, just
startled by the report of a gun which has ceased, she puts her head out
of her nest, looks round her, and sees the world; and knowing the word
of a charade which you have played, she feels instinctively the void
which exists in your languishing passion. She divines that it is only
with a lover that she can regain the delightful exercise of her free
will in love.
You have dried the green wood in preparation for a fire.
In the situation in which both of you find yourselves, there is no
woman, even the most virtuous, who would not be found worthy of a
_grande passion_, who has not dreamed of it, and who does not believe
that it is easily kindled, for there is always found a certain
_amour-propre_ ready to reinforce that conquered enemy—a jaded wife.
“If the role of an honest woman were nothing more than perilous,” said
an old lady to me, “I would admit that it would serve. But it is
tiresome; and I have never met a virtuous woman who did not think about
deceiving somebody.”
And then, before any lover presents himself, a wife discusses with
herself the legality of the act; she enters into a conflict with her
duties, with the law, with religion and with the secret desires of a
nature which knows no check-rein excepting that which she places upon
herself. And then commences for you a condition of affairs totally new;
then you receive the first intimation which nature, that good and
indulgent mother, always gives to the creatures who are exposed to any
danger. Nature has put a bell on the neck of the Minotaur, as on the
tail of that frightful snake which is the terror of travelers. And then
appear in your wife what we will call the first symptoms, and woe to
him who does not know how to contend with them. Those who in reading
our book will remember that they saw those symptoms in their own
domestic life can pass to the conclusion of this work, where they will
find how they may gain consolation.
The situation referred to, in which a married couple bind themselves
for a longer or a shorter time, is the point from which our work
starts, as it is the end at which our observations stop. A man of
intelligence should know how to recognize the mysterious indications,
the obscure signs and the involuntary revelation which a wife
unwittingly exhibits; for the next Meditation will doubtless indicate
the more evident of the manifestations to neophytes in the sublime
science of marriage.