We have come to our last observation. Doubtless this work is beginning
to tire you quite as much as its subject does, if you are married.
This work, which, according to the author, is to the _Physiology of
Marriage_ what Fact is to Theory, or History to Philosophy, has its
logic, as life, viewed as a whole, has its logic, also.
This logic—fatal, terrible—is as follows. At the close of the first
part of the book—a book filled with serious pleasantry—Adolphe has
reached, as you must have noticed, a point of complete indifference in
matrimonial matters.
He has read novels in which the writers advise troublesome husbands to
embark for the other world, or to live in peace with the fathers of
their children, to pet and adore them: for if literature is the
reflection of manners, we must admit that our manners recognize the
defects pointed out by the _Physiology of Marriage_ in this fundamental
institution. More than one great genius has dealt this social basis
terrible blows, without shaking it.
Adolphe has especially read his wife too closely, and disguises his
indifference by this profound word: indulgence. He is indulgent with
Caroline, he sees in her nothing but the mother of his children, a good
companion, a sure friend, a brother.
When the petty troubles of the wife cease, Caroline, who is more clever
than her husband, has come to profit by this advantageous indulgence:
but she does not give her dear Adolphe up. It is woman’s nature never
to yield any of her rights. DIEU ET MON DROIT—CONJUGAL! is, as is well
known, the motto of England, and is especially so to-day.
Women have such a love of domination that we will relate an anecdote,
not ten years old, in point. It is a very young anecdote.
One of the grand dignitaries of the Chamber of Peers had a Caroline, as
lax as Carolines usually are. The name is an auspicious one for women.
This dignitary, extremely old at the time, was on one side of the
fireplace, and Caroline on the other. Caroline was hard upon the
lustrum when women no longer tell their age. A friend came in to inform
them of the marriage of a general who had lately been intimate in their
house.
Caroline at once had a fit of despair, with genuine tears; she screamed
and made the grand dignitary’s head ache to such a degree, that he
tried to console her. In the midst of his condolences, the count forgot
himself so far as to say—“What can you expect, my dear, he really could
not marry you!”
And this was one of the highest functionaries of the state, but a
friend of Louis XVIII, and necessarily a little bit Pompadour.
The whole difference, then, between the situation of Adolphe and that
of Caroline, consists in this: though he no longer cares about her, she
retains the right to care about him.
Now, let us listen to “What _they_ say,” the theme of the concluding
chapter of this work.