The Physiology of Marriage, part 2 | Page 4

took me by the hand and led me to the
recess of a bay window.
"Do you happen," he said in a low voice, "to have a thousand crowns to
lend me? I have only twelve thousand francs income, and this year--"
"Alexander," cried the dear creature, interrupting her husband, while,
rushing up, she offered him the three banknotes, "I see now that it is a
piece of folly--"
"What do you mean?" answered he, "keep your money."
"But, my love, I am ruining you! I ought to know that you love me so
much, that I ought not to tell you all that I wish for."

"Keep it, my darling, it is your lawful property--nonsense, I shall
gamble this winter and get all that back again!"
"Gamble!" cried she, with an expression of horror. "Alexander, take
back these notes! Come, sir, I wish you to do so."
"No, no," replied my friend, repulsing the white and delicious little
hand. "Are you not going on Thursday to a ball of Madame de B-----?"
"I will think about what you asked of me," said I to my comrade.
I went away bowing to his wife, but I saw plainly after that scene that
my anacreontic salutation did not produce much effect upon her.
"He must be mad," thought I as I went away, "to talk of a thousand
crowns to a law student."
Five days later I found myself at the house of Madame de B-----, whose
balls were becoming fashionable. In the midst of the quadrilles I saw
the wife of my friend and that of the mathematician. Madame
Alexander wore a charming dress; some flowers and white muslin were
all that composed it. She wore a little cross /a la Jeannette/, hanging by
a black velvet ribbon which set off the whiteness of her scented skin;
long pears of gold decorated her ears. On the neck of Madame the
Professoress sparkled a superb cross of diamonds.
"How funny that is," said I to a personage who had not yet studied the
world's ledger, nor deciphered the heart of a single woman.
That personage was myself. If I had then the desire to dance with those
fair women, it was simply because I knew a secret which emboldened
my timidity.
"So after all, madame, you have your cross?" I said to her first.
"Well, I fairly won it!" she replied, with a smile hard to describe.
"How is this! no ear-rings?" I remarked to the wife of my friend.
"Ah!" she replied, "I have enjoyed possession of them during a whole
luncheon time, but you see that I have ended by converting Alexander."
"He allowed himself to be easily convinced?"
She answered with a look of triumph.
Eight years afterwards, this scene suddenly rose to my memory, though
I had long since forgotten it, and in the light of the candles I distinctly
discerned the moral of it. Yes, a woman has a horror of being
convinced of anything; when you try to persuade her she immediately
submits to being led astray and continues to play the role which nature
gave her. In her view, to allow herself to be won over is to grant a favor,

but exact arguments irritate and confound her; in order to guide her you
must employ the power which she herself so frequently employs and
which lies in an appeal to sensibility. It is therefore in his wife, and not
in himself, that a husband can find the instruments of his despotism; as
diamond cuts diamond so must the woman be made to tyrannize over
herself. To know how to offer the ear- rings in such a way that they will
be returned, is a secret whose application embraces the slightest details
of life. And now let us pass to the second observation.
"He who can manage property of one toman, can manage one of an
hundred thousand," says an Indian proverb; and I, for my part, will
enlarge upon this Asiatic adage and declare, that he who can govern
one woman can govern a nation, and indeed there is very much
similarity between these two governments. Must not the policy of
husbands be very nearly the same as the policy of kings? Do not we see
kings trying to amuse the people in order to deprive them of their
liberty; throwing food at their heads for one day, in order to make them
forget the misery of a whole year; preaching to them not to steal and at
the same time stripping them of everything; and saying to them: "It
seems to me that if I were the people I should be virtuous"? It is from
England that we obtain the precedent which husbands should adopt in
their houses. Those who have eyes ought to