Notice, he never informed his wife
of the trick he had played on her; and if his fortune was recuperated,
it was directly after the building of the wing, and the expenditure of
enormous sums in making water-courses; but he assured her that the
lake provided a water-power by which mills might be run, etc.
Now, there was a conjugal blister well conceived, for this husband
neither neglected to rear his family nor to invite to his house
neighbors who were tiresome, stupid or old; and if he spent the winter
in Paris, he flung his wife into the vortex of balls and races, so
that she had not a minute to give to lovers, who are usually the fruit
of a vacant life.
Journeys to Italy, Switzerland or Greece, sudden complaints which
require a visit to the waters, and the most distant waters, are pretty
good blisters. In fact, a man of sense should know how to manufacture
a thousand of them.
Let us continue our examination of such personal methods.
And here we would have you observe that we are reasoning upon a
hypothesis, without which this book will be unintelligible to you;
namely, we suppose that your honeymoon has lasted for a respectable
time and that the lady that you married was not a widow, but a maid;
on the opposite supposition, it is at least in accordance with French
manners to think that your wife married you merely for the purpose of
becoming inconsistent.
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