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.