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.