Caroline examines the dates and remembers them as appointments made for
business connected with Chaumontel’s affair. Adolphe had designated the
sixth of January as the day fixed for a meeting at which the creditors
in Chaumontel’s affair were to receive the sums due them. On the
eleventh of February he had an appointment with the notary, in order to
sign a receipt relative to Chaumontel’s affair.
Or else—but an attempt to mention all the chances of discovery would be
the undertaking of a madman.
Every woman will remember to herself how the bandage with which her
eyes were bound fell off: how, after many doubts, and agonies of heart,
she made up her mind to have a final quarrel for the simple purpose of
finishing the romance, putting the seal to the book, stipulating for
her independence, or beginning life over again.
Some women are fortunate enough to have anticipated their husbands, and
they then have the quarrel as a sort of justification.
Nervous women give way to a burst of passion and commit acts of
violence.
Women of mild temper assume a decided tone which appalls the most
intrepid husbands. Those who have no vengeance ready shed a great many
tears.
Those who love you forgive you. Ah, they conceive so readily, like the
woman called “Ma berline,” that their Adolphe must be loved by the
women of France, that they are rejoiced to possess, legally, a man
about whom everybody goes crazy.
Certain women with lips tight shut like a vise, with a muddy complexion
and thin arms, treat themselves to the malicious pleasure of
promenading their Adolphe through the quagmire of falsehood and
contradiction: they question him (see _Troubles within Troubles_), like
a magistrate examining a criminal, reserving the spiteful enjoyment of
crushing his denials by positive proof at a decisive moment. Generally,
in this supreme scene of conjugal life, the fair sex is the
executioner, while, in the contrary case, man is the assassin.
This is the way of it: This last quarrel (you shall know why the author
has called it the _last_), is always terminated by a solemn, sacred
promise, made by scrupulous, noble, or simply intelligent women (that
is to say, by all women), and which we give here in its grandest form.
“Enough, Adolphe! We love each other no more; you have deceived me, and
I shall never forget it. I may forgive it, but I can never forget it.”
Women represent themselves as implacable only to render their
forgiveness charming: they have anticipated God.
“We have now to live in common like two friends,” continues Caroline.
“Well, let us live like two comrades, two brothers, I do not wish to
make your life intolerable, and I never again will speak to you of what
has happened—”
Adolphe gives Caroline his hand: she takes it, and shakes it in the
English style. Adolphe thanks Caroline, and catches a glimpse of bliss:
he has converted his wife into a sister, and hopes to be a bachelor
again.
The next day Caroline indulges in a very witty allusion (Adolphe cannot
help laughing at it) to Chaumontel’s affair. In society she makes
general remarks which, to Adolphe, are very particular remarks, about
their last quarrel.
At the end of a fortnight a day never passes without Caroline’s
recalling their last quarrel by saying: “It was the day when I found
Chaumontel’s bill in your pocket:” or “it happened since our last
quarrel:” or, “it was the day when, for the first time, I had a clear
idea of life,” etc. She assassinates Adolphe, she martyrizes him! In
society she gives utterance to terrible things.
“We are happy, my dear [to a lady], when we love each other no longer:
it’s then that we learn how to make ourselves beloved,” and she looks
at Ferdinand.
In short, the last quarrel never comes to an end, and from this fact
flows the following axiom:
Axiom.—Putting yourself in the wrong with your lawful wife, is solving
the problem of Perpetual Motion.