' Thus, madame, the estimable man who
is unhappy in his domestic relations, the man who has an inconsistent
wife, or the husband who is minotaurized are simply husbands as they
appear in Moliere. Well, then, O goddess of modern taste, do not these
expressions seem to you characterized by a transparency chaste enough
for anybody?"
"Ah! mon Dieu!" she answered, laughing, "if the thing is the same,
what does it matter whether it be expressed in two syllables or in a
hundred?"
She bade me good-bye, with an ironical nod and disappeared, doubtless
to join the countesses of my preface and all the metaphorical
creatures, so often employed by romance-writers as agents for the
recovery or composition of ancient manuscripts.
As for you, the more numerous and the more real creatures who read my
book, if there are any among you who make common cause with my
conjugal champion, I give you notice that you will not at once become
unhappy in your domestic relations. A man arrives at this conjugal
condition not suddenly, but insensibly and by degrees. Many husbands
have even remained unfortunate in their domestic relations during
their whole life and have never known it. This domestic revolution
develops itself in accordance with fixed rules; for the revolutions of
the honeymoon are as regular as the phases of the moon in heaven, and
are the same in every married house.
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