Very well! In this degree of longitude, not far from a tropical sign
upon the name of which good taste forbids us to make a jest at once
coarse and unworthy of this thoughtful work, a horrible little
annoyance appears, ingeniously called the Matrimonial Gadfly, the most
provoking of all gnats, mosquitoes, blood-suckers, fleas and scorpions,
for no net was ever yet invented that could keep it off. The gadfly
does not immediately sting you; it begins by buzzing in your ears, and
_you do not at first know what it is_.
Thus, apropos of nothing, in the most natural way in the world,
Caroline says: “Madame Deschars had a lovely dress on, yesterday.”
“She is a woman of taste,” returns Adolphe, though he is far from
thinking so.
“Her husband gave it to her,” resumes Caroline, with a shrug of her
shoulders.
“Ah!”
“Yes, a four hundred franc dress! It’s the very finest quality of
velvet.”
“Four hundred francs!” cries Adolphe, striking the attitude of the
apostle Thomas.
“But then there are two extra breadths and enough for a high waist!”
“Monsieur Deschars does things on a grand scale,” replies Adolphe,
taking refuge in a jest.
“All men don’t pay such attentions to their wives,” says Caroline,
curtly.
“What attentions?”
“Why, Adolphe, thinking of extra breadths and of a waist to make the
dress good again, when it is no longer fit to be worn low in the neck.”
Adolphe says to himself, “Caroline wants a dress.”
Poor man!
Some time afterward, Monsieur Deschars furnishes his wife’s chamber
anew. Then he has his wife’s diamonds set in the prevailing fashion.
Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allows his
wife to go out without offering her his arm.
If you bring Caroline anything, no matter what, it is never equal to
what Monsieur Deschars has done. If you allow yourself the slightest
gesture or expression a little livelier than usual, if you speak a
little bit loud, you hear the hissing and viper-like remark:
“You wouldn’t see Monsieur Deschars behaving like this! Why don’t you
take Monsieur Deschars for a model?”
In short, this idiotic Monsieur Deschars is forever looming up in your
household on every conceivable occasion.
The expression—“Do you suppose Monsieur Deschars ever allows himself”
—is a sword of Damocles, or what is worse, a Damocles pin: and your
self-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly sticking
it, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety of
unforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning terms
of endearment, and with the most agreeable little ways.
Adolphe, stung till he finds himself tattooed, finally does what is
done by police authorities, by officers of government, by military
tacticians. He casts his eye on Madame de Fischtaminel, who is still
young, elegant and a little bit coquettish, and places her (this had
been the rascal’s intention for some time) like a blister upon
Caroline’s extremely ticklish skin.
O you, who often exclaim, “I don’t know what is the matter with my
wife!” you will kiss this page of transcendent philosophy, for you will
find in it _the key to every woman’s character_! But as to knowing
women as well as I know them, it will not be knowing them much; they
don’t know themselves! In fact, as you well know, God was Himself
mistaken in the only one that He attempted to manage and to whose
manufacture He had given personal attention.
Caroline is very willing to sting Adolphe at all hours, but this
privilege of letting a wasp off now and then upon one’s consort (the
legal term), is exclusively reserved to the wife. Adolphe is a monster
if he starts off a single fly at Caroline. On her part, it is a
delicious joke, a new jest to enliven their married life, and one
dictated by the purest intentions; while on Adolphe’s part, it is a
piece of cruelty worthy a Carib, a disregard of his wife’s heart, and a
deliberate plan to give her pain. But that is nothing.
“So you are really in love with Madame de Fischtaminel?” Caroline asks.
“What is there so seductive in the mind or the manners of the spider?”
“Why, Caroline—”
“Oh, don’t undertake to deny your eccentric taste,” she returns,
checking a negation on Adolphe’s lips. “I have long seen that you
prefer that Maypole [Madame de Fischtaminel is thin] to me. Very well!
go on; you will soon see the difference.”
Do you understand? You cannot suspect Caroline of the slightest
inclination for Monsieur Deschars, a low, fat, red-faced man, formerly
a notary, while you are in love with Madame de Fischtaminel! Then
Caroline, the Caroline whose simplicity caused you such agony, Caroline
who has become familiar with society, Caroline becomes acute and witty:
you have two gadflies instead of one.
The next day she asks you, with a charming air of interest, “How are
you coming on with Madame de Fischtaminel?”
When you go out, she says: “Go and drink something calming, my dear.”
For, in their anger with a rival, all women, duchesses even, will use
invectives, and even venture into the domain of Billingsgate; they make
an offensive weapon of anything and everything.
To try to convince Caroline that she is mistaken and that you are
indifferent to Madame de Fischtaminel, would cost you dear. This is a
blunder that no sensible man commits; he would lose his power and spike
his own guns.
Oh! Adolphe, you have arrived unfortunately at that season so
ingeniously called the _Indian Summer of Marriage_.
You must now—pleasing task!—win your wife, your Caroline, over again,
seize her by the waist again, and become the best of husbands by trying
to guess at things to please her, so as to act according to her whims
instead of according to your will. This is the whole question
henceforth.