3. ONE BED FOR BOTH.
On a night in December, Frederick the Great looked up at the sky,
whose stars were twinkling with that clear and living light which
presages heavy frost, and he exclaimed, "This weather will result in a
great many soldiers to Prussia."
The king expressed here, by a single phrase, the principal
disadvantage which results from the constant living together of
married people. Although it may be permitted to Napoleon and to
Frederick to estimate the value of a woman more or less according to
the number of her children, yet a husband of talent ought, according
to the maxims of the thirteenth Meditation, to consider
child-begetting merely as a means of defence, and it is for him to
know to what extent it may take place.
The observation leads into mysteries from which the physiological Muse
recoils. She has been quite willing to enter the nuptial chambers
while they are occupied, but she is a virgin and a prude, and there
are occasions on which she retires. For, since it is at this passage
in my book that the Muse is inclined to put her white hands before her
eyes so as to see nothing, like the young girl looking through the
interstices of her tapering fingers, she will take advantage of this
attack of modesty, to administer a reprimand to our manners.
Pages:
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278