The Physiology of Marriage, part 3 | Page 5

brought her husband into the condition of perplexity, she managed that

a passionate letter should fall into his hands. One evening in the midst
of the admirable catastrophe which she had thus brought to a climax,
madame threw herself at her husband's feet, wet them with her tears,
and thus concluded the climax to her own satisfaction.
"I esteem and honor you profoundly," she cried, "for keeping your own
counsel as you have done. I am in love! Is this a sentiment which is
easy for me to repress? But what I can do is to confess the fact to you;
to implore you to protect me from myself, to save me from my own
folly. Be my master and be a stern master to me; take me away from
this place, remove me from what has caused all this trouble, console me;
I will forget him, I desire to do so. I do not wish to betray you. I
humbly ask your pardon for the treachery love has suggested to me.
Yes, I confess to you that the love which I pretended to have for my
cousin was a snare set to deceive you. I love him with the love of
friendship and no more.--Oh! forgive me! I can love no one but"--her
voice was choked in passionate sobs--"Oh! let us go away, let us leave
Paris!"
She began to weep; her hair was disheveled, her dress in disarray; it
was midnight, and her husband forgave her. From henceforth, the
cousin made his appearance without risk, and the Minotaur devoured
one victim more.
What instructions can we give for contending with such adversaries as
these? Their heads contain all the diplomacy of the congress of Vienna;
they have as much power when they are caught as when they escape.
What man has a mind supple enough to lay aside brute force and
strength and follow his wife through such mazes as these?
To make a false plea every moment, in order to elicit the truth, a true
plea in order to unmask falsehood; to charge the battery when least
expected, and to spike your gun at the very moment of firing it; to scale
the mountain with the enemy, in order to descend to the plain again five
minutes later; to accompany the foe in windings as rapid, as obscure as
those of a plover on the breezes; to obey when obedience is necessary,
and to oppose when resistance is inertial; to traverse the whole scale of
hypotheses as a young artist with one stroke runs from the lowest to the
highest note of his piano; to divine at last the secret purpose on which a
woman is bent; to fear her caresses and to seek rather to find out what
are the thoughts that suggested them and the pleasure which she

derived from them--this is mere child's pay for the man of intellect and
for those lucid and searching imaginations which possess the gift of
doing and thinking at the same time. But there are a vast number of
husbands who are terrified at the mere idea of putting in practice these
principles in their dealings with a woman.
Such men as these prefer passing their lives in making huge efforts to
become second-class chess-players, or to pocket adroitly a ball in
billiards.
Some of them will tell you that they are incapable of keeping their
minds on such a constant strain and breaking up the habits of their life.
In that case the woman triumphs. She recognizes that in mind and
energy she is her husband's superior, although the superiority may be
but temporary; and yet there rises in her a feeling of contempt for the
head of the house.
If many man fail to be masters in their own house this is not from lack
of willingness, but of talent. As for those who are ready to undergo the
toils of this terrible duel, it is quite true that they must needs possess
great moral force.
And really, as soon as it is necessary to display all the resources of this
secret strategy, it is often useless to attempt setting any traps for these
satanic creatures. Once women arrive at a point when they willfully
deceive, their countenances become as inscrutable as vacancy. Here is
an example which came within my own experience.
A very young, very pretty, and very clever coquette of Paris had not yet
risen. Seated by her bed was one of her dearest friends. A letter arrived
from another, a very impetuous fellow, to whom she had allowed the
right of speaking to her like a master. The letter was in pencil and ran
as follows:
"I understand that Monsieur C----- is with you at this moment. I am
waiting for him to blow