The Physiology of Marriage, part 3 | Page 4

who in order to give employment
to a vacant mind, examines night and day the changing tableaux of each
day's experience, soon discovers the mistake she has made in falling
into a trap or allowing herself to be surprised by a catastrophe; she will
then endeavor to turn all these weapons against you.
There is a man in society, the sight of whom is strangely annoying to
your wife; she can tolerate neither his tone, his manners nor his way of
regarding things. Everything connected with him is revolting to her;
she is persecuted by him, he is odious to her; she hopes that no one will
tell him this. It seems almost as if she were attempting to oppose you;
for this man is one for whom you have the highest esteem. You like his
disposition because he flatters you; and thus your wife presumes that
your esteem for him results from flattered vanity. When you give a ball,
an evening party or a concert, there is almost a discussion on this
subject, and madame picks a quarrel with you, because you are
compelling her to see people who are not agreeable to her.
"At least, sir, I shall never have to reproach myself with omitting to
warn you. That man will yet cause you trouble. You should put some
confidence in women when they pass sentence on the character of a
man. And permit me to tell you that this baron, for whom you have
such a predilection, is a very dangerous person, and you are doing very
wrong to bring him to your house. And this is the way you behave; you
absolutely force me to see one whom I cannot tolerate, and if I ask you
to invite Monsieur A-----, you refuse to do so, because you think that I
like to have him with me! I admit that he talks well, that he is kind and
amiable; but you are more to me than he can ever be."
These rude outlines of feminine tactics, which are emphasized by
insincere gestures, by looks of feigned ingenuousness, by artful
intonations of the voice and even by the snare of cunning silence, are
characteristic to some degree of their whole conduct.
There are few husbands who in such circumstances as these do not

form the idea of setting a mouse-trap; they welcome as their guests
both Monsieur A----- and the imaginary baron who represents the
person whom their wives abhor, and they do so in the hope of
discovering a lover in the celibate who is apparently beloved.
Oh yes, I have often met in the world young men who were absolutely
starlings in love and complete dupes of a friendship which women
pretended to show them, women who felt themselves obliged to make a
diversion and to apply a blister to their husbands as their husbands had
previously done to them! These poor innocents pass their time in
running errands, in engaging boxes at the theatre, in riding in the Bois
de Boulogne by the carriages of their pretended mistresses; they are
publicly credited with possessing women whose hands they have not
even kissed. Vanity prevents them from contradicting these flattering
rumors, and like the young priests who celebrate masses without a Host,
they enjoy a mere show passion, and are veritable supernumeraries of
love.
Under these circumstances sometimes a husband on returning home
asks the porter: "Has no one been here?"--"M. le Baron came past at
two o'clock to see monsieur; but as he found no one was in but madame
he went away; but Monsieur A----- is with her now."
You reach the drawing-room, you see there a young celibate, sprightly,
scented, wearing a fine necktie, in short a perfect dandy. He is a man
who holds you in high esteem; when he comes to your house your wife
listens furtively for his footsteps; at a ball she always dances with him.
If you forbid her to see him, she makes a great outcry and it is not till
many years afterwards [see Meditation on /Las Symptoms/] that you
see the innocence of Monsieur A----- and the culpability of the baron.
We have observed and noted as one of the cleverest manoeuvres, that
of a young woman who, carried away by an irresistible passion,
exhibited a bitter hatred to the man she did not love, but lavished upon
her lover secret intimations of her love. The moment that her husband
was persuaded that she loved the /Cicisbeo/ and hated the /Patito/, she
arranged that she and the /Patito/ should be found in a situation whose
compromising character she had calculated in advance, and her
husband and the execrated celibate were thus induced to believe that
her love and her aversion were equally insincere. When she had