He treats your wife for
complaints which she has not, in order to cure her of those which she
has, and all the while you have no idea of it; for the scientific
jargon of doctors can only be compared to the layers in which they
envelop their pills.
An honest woman in her chamber with the doctor is like a minister sure
of a majority; she has it in her power to make a horse, or a carriage,
according to her good pleasure and her taste; she will send you away
or receive you, as she likes. Sometimes she will pretend to be ill in
order to have a chamber separate from yours; sometimes she will
surround herself with all the paraphernalia of an invalid; she will
have an old woman for a nurse, regiments of vials and of bottles, and,
environed by these ramparts, will defy you by her invalid airs. She
will talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and of
the soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she has
had, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you with
disgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferings
are not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, a
successful attack may be made on that singular abstraction known as
_your honor_.
In this way your wife will be able to fortify herself at every point
of contact which you possess with the world, with society and with
life.
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