When a man reaches the position in which the first part of this book
sets him, we suppose that the idea of his wife being possessed by
another makes his heart beat, and rekindles his passion, either by an
appeal to his _amour propre_, his egotism, or his self-interest, for
unless he is still on his wife’s side, he must be one of the lowest of
men and deserves his fate.
In this trying moment it is very difficult for a husband to avoid
making mistakes; for, with regard to most men, the art of ruling a wife
is even less known than that of judiciously choosing one. However,
marital policy consists chiefly in the practical application of three
principles which should be the soul of your conduct. The first is never
to believe what a woman says; the second, always to look for the spirit
without dwelling too much upon the letter of her actions; and the
third, not to forget that a woman is never so garrulous as when she
holds her tongue, and is never working with more energy than when she
keeps quiet.
From the moment that your suspicions are aroused, you ought to be like
a man mounted on a tricky horse, who always watches the ears of the
beast, in fear of being thrown from the saddle.
But art consists not so much in the knowledge of principles, as in the
manner of applying them; to reveal them to ignorant people is to put a
razor in the hand of a monkey. Moreover, the first and most vital of
your duties consists in perpetual dissimulation, an accomplishment in
which most husbands are sadly lacking. In detecting the symptoms of
minotaurism a little too plainly marked in the conduct of their wives,
most men at once indulge in the most insulting suspicions. Their minds
contract a tinge of bitterness which manifests itself in their
conversation, and in their manners; and the alarm which fills their
heart, like the gas flame in a glass globe, lights up their
countenances so plainly, that it accounts for their conduct.
Now a woman, who has twelve hours more than you have each day to
reflect and to study you, reads the suspicion written upon your face at
the very moment that it arises. She will never forget this gratuitous
insult. Nothing can ever remedy that. All is now said and done, and the
very next day, if she has opportunity, she will join the ranks of
inconsistent women.
You ought then to begin under these circumstances to affect towards
your wife the same boundless confidence that you have hitherto had in
her. If you begin to lull her anxieties by honeyed words, you are lost,
she will not believe you; for she has her policy as you have yours. Now
there is as much need for tact as for kindliness in your behavior, in
order to inculcate in her, without her knowing it, a feeling of
security, which will lead her to lay back her ears, and prevent you
from using rein or spur at the wrong moment.
But how can we compare a horse, the frankest of all animals, to a
being, the flashes of whose thought, and the movements of whose
impulses render her at moments more prudent than the Servite Fra-Paolo,
the most terrible adviser that the Ten at Venice ever had; more
deceitful than a king; more adroit than Louis XI; more profound than
Machiavelli; as sophistical as Hobbes; as acute as Voltaire; as pliant
as the fiancee of Mamolin; and distrustful of no one in the whole wide
world but you?
Moreover, to this dissimulation, by means of which the springs that
move your conduct ought to be made as invisible as those that move the
world, must be added absolute self-control. That diplomatic
imperturbability, so boasted of by Talleyrand, must be the least of
your qualities; his exquisite politeness and the grace of his manners
must distinguish your conversation. The professor here expressly
forbids you to use your whip, if you would obtain complete control over
your gentle Andalusian steed.
LXI.
If a man strike his mistress it is a self-inflicted wound; but if he
strike his wife it is suicide!
How can we think of a government without police, an action without
force, a power without weapons?—Now this is exactly the problem which
we shall try to solve in our future meditations. But first we must
submit two preliminary observations. They will furnish us with two
other theories concerning the application of all the mechanical means
which we propose you should employ. An instance from life will refresh
these arid and dry dissertations: the hearing of such a story will be
like laying down a book, to work in the field.
In the year 1822, on a fine morning in the month of February, I was
traversing the boulevards of Paris, from the quiet circles of the
Marais to the fashionable quarters of the Chaussee-d’Antin, and I
observed for the first time, not without a certain philosophic joy, the
diversity of physiognomy and the varieties of costume which, from the
Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule even to the Madeleine, made each portion of the
boulevard a world of itself, and this whole zone of Paris, a grand
panorama of manners. Having at that time no idea of what the world was,
and little thinking that one day I should have the audacity to set
myself up as a legislator on marriage, I was going to take lunch at the
house of a college friend, who was perhaps too early in life afflicted
with a wife and two children. My former professor of mathematics lived
at a short distance from the house of my college friend, and I promised
myself the pleasure of a visit to this worthy mathematician before
indulging my appetite for the dainties of friendship. I accordingly
made my way to the heart of a study, where everything was covered with
a dust which bore witness to the lofty abstraction of the scholar. But
a surprise was in store for me there. I perceived a pretty woman seated
on the arm of an easy chair, as if mounted on an English horse; her
face took on the look of conventional surprise worn by mistresses of
the house towards those they do not know, but she did not disguise the
expression of annoyance which, at my appearance, clouded her
countenance with the thought that I was aware how ill-timed was my
presence. My master, doubtless absorbed in an equation, had not yet
raised his head; I therefore waved my right hand towards the young
lady, like a fish moving his fin, and on tiptoe I retired with a
mysterious smile which might be translated “I will not be the one to
prevent him committing an act of infidelity to Urania.” She nodded her
head with one of those sudden gestures whose graceful vivacity is not
to be translated into words.
“My good friend, don’t go away,” cried the geometrician. “This is my
wife!”
I bowed for the second time!—Oh, Coulon! Why wert thou not present to
applaud the only one of thy pupils who understood from that moment the
expression, “anacreontic,” as applied to a bow?—The effect must have
been very overwhelming; for Madame the Professoress, as the Germans
say, rose hurriedly as if to go, making me a slight bow which seemed to
say: “Adorable!——” Her husband stopped her, saying:
“Don’t go, my child, this is one of my pupils.”
The young woman bent her head towards the scholar as a bird perched on
a bough stretches its neck to pick up a seed.
“It is not possible,” said the husband, heaving a sigh, “and I am going
to prove it to you by A plus B.”
“Let us drop that, sir, I beg you,” she answered, pointing with a wink
to me.
If it had been a problem in algebra, my master would have understood
this look, but it was Chinese to him, and so he went on.
“Look here, child, I constitute you judge in the matter; our income is
ten thousand francs.”
At these words I retired to the door, as if I were seized with a wild
desire to examine the framed drawings which had attracted my attention.
My discretion was rewarded by an eloquent glance. Alas! she did not
know that in Fortunio I could have played the part of Sharp-Ears, who
heard the truffles growing.
“In accordance with the principles of general economy,” said my master,
“no one ought to spend in rent and servant’s wages more than two-tenths
of his income; now our apartment and our attendance cost altogether a
hundred louis. I give you twelve hundred francs to dress with” [in
saying this he emphasized every syllable]. “Your food,” he went on,
takes up four thousand francs, our children demand at lest twenty-five
louis; I take for myself only eight hundred francs; washing, fuel and
light mount up to about a thousand francs; so that there does not
remain, as you see, more than six hundred francs for unforeseen
expenses. In order to buy the cross of diamonds, we must draw a
thousand crowns from our capital, and if once we take that course, my
little darling, there is no reason why we should not leave Paris which
you love so much, and at once take up our residence in the country, in
order to retrench. Children and household expenses will increase fast
enough! Come, try to be reasonable!”
“I suppose I must,” she said, “but you will be the only husband in
Paris who has not given a New Year’s gift to his wife.”
And she stole away like a school-boy who goes to finish an imposed
duty. My master made a gesture of relief. When he saw the door close he
rubbed his hands, he talked of the war in Spain; and I went my way to
the Rue de Provence, little knowing that I had received the first
installment of a great lesson in marriage, any more than I dreamt of
the conquest of Constantinople by General Diebitsch. I arrived at my
host’s house at the very moment they were sitting down to luncheon,
after having waited for me the half hour demanded by usage. It was, I
believe, as she opened a _pate de foie gras_ that my pretty hostess
said to her husband, with a determined air:
“Alexander, if you were really nice you would give me that pair of
ear-rings that we saw at Fossin’s.”
“You shall have them,” cheerfully replied my friend, drawing from his
pocketbook three notes of a thousand francs, the sight of which made
his wife’s eyes sparkle. “I can no more resist the pleasure of offering
them to you,” he added, “than you can that of accepting them. This is
the anniversary of the day I first saw you, and the diamonds will
perhaps make you remember it!——”
“You bad man!” said she, with a winning smile.
She poked two fingers into her bodice, and pulling out a bouquet of
violets she threw them with childlike contempt into the face of my
friend. Alexander gave her the price of the jewels, crying out:
“I had seen the flowers!”
I shall never forget the lively gesture and the eager joy with which,
like a cat which lays its spotted paw upon a mouse, the little woman
seized the three bank notes; she rolled them up blushing with pleasure,
and put them in the place of the violets which before had perfumed her
bosom. I could not help thinking about my old mathematical master. I
did not then see any difference between him and his pupil, than that
which exists between a frugal man and a prodigal, little thinking that
he of the two who seemed to calculate the better, actually calculated
the worse. The luncheon went off merrily. Very soon, seated in a little
drawing-room newly decorated, before a cheerful fire which gave warmth
and made our hearts expand as in spring time, I felt compelled to make
this loving couple a guest’s compliments on the furnishing of their
little bower.
“It is a pity that all this costs so dear,” said my friend, “but it is
right that the nest be worthy of the bird; but why the devil do you
compliment me upon curtains which are not paid for?—You make me
remember, just at the time I am digesting lunch, that I still owe two
thousand francs to a Turk of an upholsterer.”
At these words the mistress of the house made a mental inventory of the
pretty room with her eyes, and the radiancy of her face changed to
thoughtfulness. Alexander took me by the hand and led me to the recess
of a bay window.
“Do you happen,” he said in a low voice, “to have a thousand crowns to
lend me? I have only twelve thousand francs income, and this year—”
“Alexander,” cried the dear creature, interrupting her husband, while,
rushing up, she offered him the three banknotes, “I see now that it is
a piece of folly—”
“What do you mean?” answered he, “keep your money.”
“But, my love, I am ruining you! I ought to know that you love me so
much, that I ought not to tell you all that I wish for.”
“Keep it, my darling, it is your lawful property—nonsense, I shall
gamble this winter and get all that back again!”
“Gamble!” cried she, with an expression of horror. “Alexander, take
back these notes! Come, sir, I wish you to do so.”
“No, no,” replied my friend, repulsing the white and delicious little
hand. “Are you not going on Thursday to a ball of Madame de B——-?”
“I will think about what you asked of me,” said I to my comrade.
I went away bowing to his wife, but I saw plainly after that scene that
my anacreontic salutation did not produce much effect upon her.
“He must be mad,” thought I as I went away, “to talk of a thousand
crowns to a law student.”
Five days later I found myself at the house of Madame de B——-, whose
balls were becoming fashionable. In the midst of the quadrilles I saw
the wife of my friend and that of the mathematician. Madame Alexander
wore a charming dress; some flowers and white muslin were all that
composed it. She wore a little cross _a la Jeannette_, hanging by a
black velvet ribbon which set off the whiteness of her scented skin;
long pears of gold decorated her ears. On the neck of Madame the
Professoress sparkled a superb cross of diamonds.
“How funny that is,” said I to a personage who had not yet studied the
world’s ledger, nor deciphered the heart of a single woman.
That personage was myself. If I had then the desire to dance with those
fair women, it was simply because I knew a secret which emboldened my
timidity.
“So after all, madame, you have your cross?” I said to her first.
“Well, I fairly won it!” she replied, with a smile hard to describe.
“How is this! no ear-rings?” I remarked to the wife of my friend.
“Ah!” she replied, “I have enjoyed possession of them during a whole
luncheon time, but you see that I have ended by converting Alexander.”
“He allowed himself to be easily convinced?”
She answered with a look of triumph.
Eight years afterwards, this scene suddenly rose to my memory, though I
had long since forgotten it, and in the light of the candles I
distinctly discerned the moral of it. Yes, a woman has a horror of
being convinced of anything; when you try to persuade her she
immediately submits to being led astray and continues to play the role
which nature gave her. In her view, to allow herself to be won over is
to grant a favor, but exact arguments irritate and confound her; in
order to guide her you must employ the power which she herself so
frequently employs and which lies in an appeal to sensibility. It is
therefore in his wife, and not in himself, that a husband can find the
instruments of his despotism; as diamond cuts diamond so must the woman
be made to tyrannize over herself. To know how to offer the ear-rings
in such a way that they will be returned, is a secret whose application
embraces the slightest details of life. And now let us pass to the
second observation.
“He who can manage property of one toman, can manage one of an hundred
thousand,” says an Indian proverb; and I, for my part, will enlarge
upon this Asiatic adage and declare, that he who can govern one woman
can govern a nation, and indeed there is very much similarity between
these two governments. Must not the policy of husbands be very nearly
the same as the policy of kings? Do not we see kings trying to amuse
the people in order to deprive them of their liberty; throwing food at
their heads for one day, in order to make them forget the misery of a
whole year; preaching to them not to steal and at the same time
stripping them of everything; and saying to them: “It seems to me that
if I were the people I should be virtuous”? It is from England that we
obtain the precedent which husbands should adopt in their houses. Those
who have eyes ought to see that when the government is running smoothly
the Whigs are rarely in power. A long Tory ministry has always
succeeded an ephemeral Liberal cabinet. The orators of a national party
resemble the rats which wear their teeth away in gnawing the rotten
panel; they close up the hole as soon as they smell the nuts and the
lard locked up in the royal cupboard. The woman is the Whig of our
government. Occupying the situation in which we have left her she might
naturally aspire to the conquest of more than one privilege. Shut your
eyes to the intrigues, allow her to waste her strength in mounting half
the steps of your throne; and when she is on the point of touching your
sceptre, fling her back to the ground, quite gently and with infinite
grace, saying to her: “Bravo!” and leaving her to expect success in the
hereafter. The craftiness of this manoeuvre will prove a fine support
to you in the employment of any means which it may please you to choose
from your arsenal, for the object of subduing your wife.
Such are the general principles which a husband should put into
practice, if he wishes to escape mistakes in ruling his little kingdom.
Nevertheless, in spite of what was decided by the minority at the
council of Macon (Montesquieu, who had perhaps foreseen the coming of
constitutional government has remarked, I forget in what part of his
writings, that good sense in public assemblies is always found on the
side of the minority), we discern in a woman a soul and a body, and we
commence by investigating the means to gain control of her moral
nature. The exercise of thought, whatever people may say, is more noble
than the exercise of bodily organs, and we give precedence to science
over cookery and to intellectual training over hygiene.