To write a letter, and to have it posted; to get an answer, to read it
and burn it; there we have correspondence stated in the simplest terms.
Yet consider what immense resources are given by civilization, by our
manners and by our love to the women who wish to conceal these material
actions from the scrutiny of a husband.
The inexorable box which keeps its mouth open to all comers receives
its epistolary provender from all hands.
There is also the fatal invention of the General Delivery. A lover
finds in the world a hundred charitable persons, male and female, who,
for a slight consideration, will slip the billets-doux into the amorous
and intelligent hand of his fair mistress.
A correspondence is a variable as Proteus. There are sympathetic inks.
A young celibate has told us in confidence that he has written a letter
on the fly-leaf of a new book, which, when the husband asked for it of
the bookseller, reached the hands of his mistress, who had been
prepared the evening before for this charming article.
A woman in love, who fears her husband’s jealousy, will write and read
billets-doux during the time consecrated to those mysterious
occupations during which the most tyrannical husband must leave her
alone.
Moreover, all lovers have the art of arranging a special code of
signals, whose arbitrary import it is difficult to understand. At a
ball, a flower placed in some odd way in the hair; at the theatre, a
pocket handkerchief unfolded on the front of the box; rubbing the nose,
wearing a belt of a particular color, putting the hat on one side,
wearing one dress oftener than another, singing a certain song in a
concert or touching certain notes on the piano; fixing the eyes on a
point agreed; everything, in fact, from the hurdy-gurdy which passes
your windows and goes away if you open the shutter, to the newspaper
announcement of a horse for sale—all may be reckoned as correspondence.
How many times, in short, will a wife craftily ask her husband to do
such and such commission for her, to go to such and such a shop or
house, having previously informed her lover that your presence at such
or such a place means yes or no?
On this point the professor acknowledges with shame that there is no
possible means of preventing correspondence between lovers. But a
little machiavelism on the part of the husband will be much more likely
to remedy the difficulty than any coercive measures.
An agreement, which should be kept sacred between married people, is
their solemn oath that they will respect each other’s sealed letters.
Clever is the husband who makes this pledge on his wedding-day and is
able to keep it conscientiously.
In giving your wife unrestrained liberty to write and to receive
letters, you will be enabled to discern the moment she begins to
correspond with a lover.
But suppose your wife distrusts you and covers with impenetrable clouds
the means she takes to conceal from you her correspondence. Is it not
then time to display that intellectual power with which we armed you in
our Meditation entitled _Of the Custom House_? The man who does not see
when his wife writes to her lover, and when she receives an answer, is
a failure as a husband.
The proposed study which you ought to bestow upon the movements, the
actions, the gestures, the looks of your wife, will be perhaps
troublesome and wearying, but it will not last long; the only point is
to discover when your wife and her lover correspond and in what way.
We cannot believe that a husband, even of moderate intelligence, will
fail to see through this feminine manoeuvre, when once he suspects its
existence.
Meanwhile, you can judge from a single incident what means of police
and of restraint remain to you in the event of such a correspondence.
A young lawyer, whose ardent passion exemplified certain of the
principles dwelt upon in this important part of our work, had married a
young person whose love for him was but slight; yet this circumstance
he looked upon as an exceedingly happy one; but at the end of his first
year of marriage he perceived that his dear Anna [for Anna was her
name] had fallen in love with the head clerk of a stock-broker.
Adolph was a young man of about twenty-five, handsome in face and as
fond of amusement as any other celibate. He was frugal, discreet,
possessed of an excellent heart, rode well, talked well, had fine black
hair always curled, and dressed with taste. In short, he would have
done honor and credit to a duchess. The advocate was ugly, short,
stumpy, square-shouldered, mean-looking, and, moreover, a husband.
Anna, tall and pretty, had almond eyes, white skin and refined
features. She was all love; and passion lighted up her glance with a
bewitching expression. While her family was poor, Maitre Lebrun had an
income of twelve thousand francs. That explains all.
One evening Lebrun got home looking extremely chop-fallen. He went into
his study to work; but he soon came back shivering to his wife, for he
had caught a fever and hurriedly went to bed. There he lay groaning and
lamenting for his clients and especially for a poor widow whose fortune
he was to save the very next day by effecting a compromise. An
appointment had been made with certain business men and he was quite
incapable of keeping it. After having slept for a quarter of an hour,
he begged his wife in a feeble voice to write to one of his intimate
friends, asking him to take his (Lebrun’s) place next day at the
conference. He dictated a long letter and followed with his eye the
space taken up on the paper by his phrases. When he came to begin the
second page of the last sheet, the advocate set out to describe to his
confrere the joy which his client would feel on the signing of the
compromise, and the fatal page began with these words:
“My good friend, go for Heaven’s sake to Madame Vernon’s at once; you
are expected with impatience there; she lives at No. 7 Rue de Sentier.
Pardon my brevity; but I count on your admirable good sense to guess
what I am unable to explain.
“Tout a vous,”
“Give me the letter,” said the lawyer, “that I may see whether it is
correct before signing it.”
The unfortunate wife, who had been taken off her guard by this letter,
which bristled with the most barbarous terms of legal science, gave up
the letter. As soon as Lebrun got possession of the wily script he
began to complain, to twist himself about, as if in pain, and to demand
one little attention after another of his wife. Madame left the room
for two minutes during which the advocate leaped from his bed, folded a
piece of paper in the form of a letter and hid the missive written by
his wife. When Anna returned, the clever husband seized the blank
paper, made her address it to the friend of his, to whom the letter
which he had taken out was written, and the poor creature handed the
blank letter to his servant. Lebrun seemed to grow gradually calmer; he
slept or pretended to do so, and the next morning he still affected to
feel strange pains. Two days afterwards he tore off the first leaf of
the letter and put an “e” to the word _tout_ in the phrase “tout a
vous.”[*] He folded mysteriously the paper which contained the innocent
forgery, sealed it, left his bedroom and called the maid, saying to
her:
[*] Thus giving a feminine ending to the signature, and lending the
impression that the note emanated from the wife personally—J.W.M.
“Madame begs that you will take this to the house of M. Adolph; now, be
quick about it.”
He saw the chambermaid leave the house and soon afterwards he, on a
plea of business, went out, hurried to Rue de Sentier, to the address
indicated, and awaited the arrival of his rival at the house of a
friend who was in the secret of his stratagem. The lover, intoxicated
with happiness, rushed to the place and inquired for Madame de Vernon;
he was admitted and found himself face to face with Maitre Lebrun, who
showed a countenance pale but chill, and gazed at him with tranquil but
implacable glance.
“Sir,” he said in a tone of emotion to the young clerk, whose heart
palpitated with terror, “you are in love with my wife, and you are
trying to please her; I scarcely know how to treat you in return for
this, because in your place and at your age I should have done exactly
the same. But Anna is in despair; you have disturbed her happiness, and
her heart is filled with the torments of hell. Moreover, she has told
me all, a quarrel soon followed by a reconciliation forced her to write
the letter which you have received, and she has sent me here in her
place. I will not tell you, sir, that by persisting in your plan of
seduction you will cause the misery of her you love, that you will
forfeit her my esteem, and eventually your own; that your crime will be
stamped on the future by causing perhaps sorrow to my children. I will
not even speak to you of the bitterness you will infuse into my
life;—unfortunately these are commonplaces! But I declare to you, sir,
that the first step you take in this direction will be the signal for a
crime; for I will not trust the risk of a duel in order to stab you to
the heart!”
And the eyes of the lawyer flashed ominously.
“Now, sir,” he went on in a gentler voice, “you are young, you have a
generous heart. Make a sacrifice for the future happiness of her you
love; leave her and never see her again. And if you must needs be a
member of my family, I have a young aunt who is yet unsettled in life;
she is charming, clever and rich. Make her acquaintance, and leave a
virtuous woman undisturbed.”
This mixture of raillery and intimidation, together with the unwavering
glance and deep voice of the husband, produced a remarkable impression
on the lover. He remained for a moment utterly confused, like people
overcome with passion and deprived of all presence of mind by a sudden
shock. If Anna has since then had any lovers [which is a pure
hypothesis] Adolph certainly is not one of them.
This occurrence may help you to understand that correspondence is a
double-edged weapon which is of as much advantage for the defence of
the husband as for the inconsistency of the wife. You should therefore
encourage correspondence for the same reason that the prefect of police
takes special care that the street lamps of Paris are kept lighted.