{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_57042/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_57042","id":"gutenberg_57042","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57042","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Parenthood & Family Relations","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Marriage"],"text":"Produced by Turgut Dincer, Christian Boissonnas and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n(This book was produced from images made available by the\nHathiTrust Digital Library.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                       THE ART OF TAKING A WIFE\n\n                         BY PAOLO MANTEGAZZA\n\n                            _New Edition_\n\n                    GAY AND BIRD LONDON MDCCCXCVI\n\n\n\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n                          TO THE IMPATIENT,\n\n                     WHO WISH TO MARRY TOO SOON;\n\n                          TO THE LIBERTINES,\n\n                      WHO TAKE A WIFE TOO LATE;\n\n                             TO THE TIMID\n\n                  WHO, WAVERING BETWEEN YES AND NO,\n\n                    END BY NOT TAKING ONE AT ALL,\n\n                        This Book is Dedicated\n\n                               BY A MAN\n\n              WHO HAS ALWAYS BLESSED HIS FIRST MARRIAGE,\n\n                    AND HOPES TO BLESS THE SECOND;\n\n                 BELIEVING THIS SEXUAL CONTRACT TO BE\n\n                          THE LEAST EVIL ONE\n\n                      OF THE TIES WHICH BIND THE\n\n                          MAN TO THE WOMAN,\n\n                               IN SPITE\n\n                   OF ITS MANY DEFECTS AND DANGERS.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER                                                            PAGE\n\nPROLOGUE: BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS\u2014TO TAKE OR NOT TO TAKE\n      A WIFE?                                                       vii\n\nI. MARRIAGE IN MODERN SOCIETY,                                        1\n\nII. SEXUAL CHOICE IN MARRIAGE\u2014THE ART OF CHOOSING WELL,              36\n\nIII. AGE AND HEALTH,                                                 55\n\nIV. PHYSICAL SYMPATHY\u2014RACE AND NATIONALITY,                          95\n\nV. THE HARMONY OF FEELINGS,                                         125\n\nVI. HARMONY OF THOUGHTS,                                            154\n\nVII. THE FINANCIAL QUESTION IN MARRIAGE,                            171\n\nVIII. THE INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS OF MARRIAGE,                      192\n\nIX. HELL,                                                           224\n\nX. PURGATORY,                                                       251\n\nXI. PARADISE,                                                       283\n\n\n\n\nPROLOGUE.\n\nBETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.\u2014TO TAKE, OR NOT TO TAKE A WIFE?\n\n\nFor the majority of men, and for at least thirty years of their lives,\nlove is the strongest necessity, and governs them like a tyrant with\nno other curb than the wretched brake of written codes, which they\ndo not read, and of social conventionalities, which they can easily\nsilence by employing hypocrisy\u2019s mask; an hypocrisy, let it be well\nunderstood, well dressed, well curled, and well educated.\n\nHow can one satisfy this greatest of all human needs?\n\n_By buying love, at so much an hour, so much a month, or so much a\nyear._\n\n_By gaining it by seduction or violence._\n\n_By taking a wife._\n\nIt would seem as if these three ways of loving were totally distinct,\none from the other; in fact, that any one would exclude the others,\nand that they would stand in direct opposition to each other. But when\nhypocrisy is at the helm of the vessel which bears us over the great\nsea of life, it contrives so ably and so cleverly, as to enable us\nto enjoy all three methods at one moment, and, while we are sailing\nbetween rocks free of danger or shipwreck, it affords us, as it\nwere, all the delights of a voyage in a beautiful archipelago, where\nislands and islets seem to meet and touch each other; and where land,\nmountains, and scenery all form a bright, picturesque, and beautiful\npicture.\n\nWe row upon the tranquil waters of matrimony, and yet glide so near to\nthe shores of venal love that we can grasp the flowers and gather the\nshells and precious pearls which lie there. We sail with the wind over\nthe more tempestuous sea of seduction, but all the while we coast the\nisland of poetic, faithful, and constant love; thus, vice, adultery,\nand domestic peace, debauchery and eternal vows, angels and beasts,\nfind themselves guests at the same table, without false modesty, and\nwithout remorse.\n\nCivilisation has opened three ways of loving to men of the present\nday, and one would have thought that since they are free to choose\none, they would have been satisfied with that. Not at all. Civilised\nman is by nature insatiable, for the hammer of the _excelsior_ beats\never at his heart, the thirst for something better wears him away, and\nthe hunger for _something more_ consumes him; hence he has set himself\nto destroy the boundaries and walls which separate the three roads, so\nthat he can easily take short cuts from one to the other without risk;\nand so matrimony, prostitution, and adultery walk hand in hand; and if\nin public they appear very cool to each other, that is only a blind,\nfor in the secrecy of their houses they wink at each other, sup and\nsleep together. If all this is indeed so, a Turk would say it is so\nbecause it must be. If all this can indeed be, an epicurean optimist\nwould say, let us, too, try and sail in this sea, now so calm, and now\nso tempestuous, and let us set that sanctified hypocrisy at the helm.\n\nHowever, I am neither Turk nor cynic, and I still believe in moral\nprogress, and in the efficacy of books and the spoken word; and even\nthough I be left alone in the belief that there is no happiness save\nin the good, nor cheerfulness save in sincerity, and in being the same\ninwardly as outwardly, I would still die in this conviction.\n\nI like a mixture of things at table, but I have no heart for it in\nthe field of morality. I wish to see the family on one side, and the\nbrothel on the other; and when two natures living together have become\nan intolerable torment to each other, I should wish the law to apply\nthe instrument of divorce to their chains and to set them free.\n\nThe three ways of loving should be separate one from the other, and\nshould never be united. So far from breaking down the walls that\ndivide them, I wish to have them so high as to become impregnable\nfortresses.\n\n\u2042\n\nOnly one of these three ways, however, is that which the honest and\nhappy ought to take. That of seduction and violence, only thieves,\nassassins, and villains can enter. The third, unfortunately, the way\nof venal love, nearly all enter, though still desiring and invoking\nsome distant ideal, where this way shall be closed, and no path\nleft free save that of matrimony, though its dignity must be always\nguaranteed by the law of divorce.\n\nBut is marriage always possible and always easy?\n\nNo; it is often impossible, and always difficult.\n\nAnd the honest man stops and meditates upon it as upon the gravest,\nthe most intricate, and most obscure problem of life. The misfortune\nis this, that just these timid and thoughtful men are the best, and\nthe fear is sometimes so great, and the meditation lasts so long,\nthat old age comes upon them before they have resolved the problem or\nmade themselves a family nest. Instead of this, the improvident, the\nthoughtless, and villains precipitate themselves headforemost along\nthe road of matrimony; and if for a few moments they struggle in the\ntortures of doubt, they quickly silence apprehension and remorse by\nsaying to themselves:\n\n\u201cIf it should turn out badly, if I find nettles and thorns on this\nroad, I will clear another cross-road with one good stroke of my\nspade, and will buy love like so many others, and will, like them,\nseek it either in the house of my friend or neighbor. Immorality on\nthis point is so lax, the indulgence of the public is so merciful,\nthat I may enjoy this violation of home without falling under\nthe penalty of the law. Mahomet also, generally so severe on all\ntransgressions of the written law, when he speaks of the sins of love,\neven of the greatest, always adds: \u2018_But God is good and merciful._\u2019\nAnd all think with Mahomet, though they have not written the Koran,\nthat to the sins of love \u2018_God is good and merciful._\u2019\u201d\n\nI, however, the warmest advocate of marriage for myself and others,\ndesire with all my soul that the honest and wise man should marry, to\nincrease the capital of honesty and wisdom in future generations. And\nso I preach and shall preach to my last breath:\n\nMarry! Marriage is still and always will be the most honest, healthy,\nand ideal mode of loving.\n\nBut I add immediately:\n\nMarry well; combine all the powers of your thought and feeling to\nsolve this most important problem of your life; add to them all\nthat is best in yourself; all that you find of the best among your\ncounsellors who are your friends.\n\nAnd then follow the advice given us by that embodiment of good sense,\nBenjamin Franklin: Take a sheet of paper, and after having folded it\nin two, so as to have two distinct columns, write on one side all the\nadvantages the proposed marriage would bring you, and on the other all\nthe evils and dangers into which it might lead you. When you have\nfinished this piece of analysis work, try to measure the opposing\nelements, cancelling alternately those that seem to balance each\nother, as in algebra + 3 and - 3 is equal to zero, and you will see\nwhat is left upon the page\u2014that is, whether the good predominates, or\nwhether the evil has the upper hand.\n\nI know well all the mistakes you may make. I know, too, that if you\nlove you will write in rose-coloured ink in the column of good, and in\nthat of evil you will use the blackest. But in any case this work of\nanalysis, this labour of detailed examination will, without your being\naware of it, oblige you to consider many elements which otherwise\nyou would have passed over, just as if you had had recourse to a\nmicroscope of great power instead of to your eyes.\n\nMatrimony must be studied with the eyes first; with the microscope\nafter; yes, even with the telescope. The eyes will enable us to see\nthe principal part of the problem; the microscope will show all the\nins and outs of our love; it will reveal all its cells and all its\nfibres; and lastly, the telescope will give us the power of seeing,\nprophetically, as it were, what will befall our passion and desire in\nthe evolution of time.\n\nThen, if, after using eyes, microscope, and telescope, you also read\nmy book, you will find there the sincere and dispassionate words of a\nman who became a physician that he might study mankind better; who\nbegan by studying himself, as being the subject ever at hand; who to\nthis daily incessant study has devoted _forty-six_ large volumes not\nyet printed.\n\nListen to the voice of a man who has made woman his principal study,\njudging her to be the better part of humanity, and has loved her more\nthan all the creatures upon earth, believing her to be the first and\ngreatest source of happiness. I know perfectly that, even after having\napplied Franklin\u2019s method to the study of the problem of matrimony,\neven after having used eyes, microscope, and telescope, and read my\nbook, you may yet make a mistake; but your conscience will always be\nfree from any remorse, in knowing that, as far as you were able, you\ndid all that was possible to secure happiness.\n\nVessels are sometimes wrecked under the command of able and brave\ncaptains, and under the guidance of a sure compass. But for one of\nthese you find a hundred wrecks, to which there was no compass, or an\nignorant or drunken captain.\n\nAnd all those who marry without reflecting deeply and long on the\nabstruse problem are drunk and ignorant captains, who launch, without\na compass, upon the most tempestuous sea.\n\n\n\n\nTHE\n\nART OF TAKING A WIFE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nMARRIAGE IN MODERN SOCIETY.\n\n\nOf all paradoxes man is the cleverest and most untiring. He says he is\na worm of the earth, but believes himself to be a son of God; his own\nperson he clothes modestly, but revels in discovering the nakedness\nof the greatest possible number of his sisters in Christ. The more\nhe humiliates himself, the prouder he is; the more he vaunts his\ngenerosity, so much the more is he egotistical; an adorer of liberty\nin theory, but in practice a daily contriver of tyrannies.\n\nFor the present I will confine myself to this last form of his\nmadness. If one only listens to him, he places liberty above all the\ngood things of the world. If Adam has lost the earthly paradise,\nit is because he did not know how to tolerate the yoke of a divine\nprohibition; if man has spattered his planet with blood, it is because\nhe preferred the hard bread of the free citizen to the golden chains\nof despotism; if he has raised monuments to Spartacus, Bahilla,\nGaribaldi, and Washington, it is because his first glory is to be\nfree; but the monuments forgotten, the tyrants killed, he raises new\nones on his own account; perhaps for the pleasure of destroying them\nhereafter. If he does not seek some innocent and pleasant occupation,\nwhat can he do after having slept and loved and eaten?\n\n_Numbers_ must take the first place among the early tyrants of our own\nmaking.\n\nWhen God made the world, he entirely forgot to make numbers, and we\nhave corrected this fault of creation by making them ourselves. God\nhad not numbered the stars in heaven, or the drops of water in the\nsea, the leaves on the trees or the ants on the ground. Infinity\nabove, infinity below, the ineffable and immeasurable everywhere.\n\nInstead, we have repaired this great forgetfulness of the Creator, by\nplacing numbers above everything else, and making them our masters in\nthe world of living things and dead; we allow them to tyrannize over\nus in every act of our humble daily life, as well as in the pages of\nhistory and in dogmas of philosophy. If there have been sanguinary\nrevolutions in order to obtain the liberty of the press, why as yet\nhas no one rebelled against the tyranny of numbers?\n\n_Quien sabe?_\n\nWhoever would think of buying eleven or thirteen eggs?\n\nNo one, for 10 and 12 are our small tyrants.\n\nWho would make a present of nine or ninety-nine francs to his own son?\n\nNo one, for 10 is a great tyrant, and 100 greater than 10.\n\nWho has never felt the yoke of numbers one thousand and one hundred\nthousand? who is never in subjection to the tyranny of the million,\nboth in language and mode of life?\n\nAnd centuries, too, which are only so many figures, what a number\nof theories they have evoked from the depths of history; how many\nfalse names have they not written in the anagraphs of time; how\nmany revolutions have they not postponed; how many others have they\naroused, merely on account of the tyranny of a number?\n\nFor some years we have had before our eyes one of the most deplorably\nhumiliating examples of our view of this arithmetical incubus, the\ndecline of the nineteenth century to make room for the twentieth.\n\nSix years are still wanting till this numerical cataclysm. Who knows\nhow many books will be written on the century dying out, how many\nprophecies on the century following it; what torrents of philosophy\nand ink to discuss the passing of the number 19 to that of 20?\n\nYet centuries only exist on paper, and after having made them\nourselves, we adore and freely elect them to be our tyrants; only to\nderide the poor savages who, like us, make their own gods of wood and\nstone, fall on their knees before them and fear them.\n\nAnd we fear numbers\u2014only another idol of thought, made for our\nuse and necessity, and in the similitude of our wretchedness and\nintellectual weakness.\n\nFor my part I only see around me an infinite continuity of things and\nof time, nor do I allow myself to be overawed by the cabal of numbers,\nwith which we ought to amuse ourselves as with a pack of cards,\nesteeming them for what they are worth; a poor example of a thing yet\npoorer!\n\nThe _dying century_, _fin de si\u00e8cle_, and all such sensational\nphrases, which are intended to express a great deal, because they mean\nnothing\u2014these exclamations, the eloquence of the non-eloquent, move me\nlittle, if at all. I look back and see _a yesterday_; I look around\nand see _a to-day_; forward and I see _a to-morrow_; the three tenses\nof the _to become_, which have no numbers, nor will ever have. For they\nsucceed each other unceasingly, following the mighty strides of our\njourney, not with the figures of a century, but with a _regret_ that\nbecomes a _hope_, and will be a _faith_; to be succeeded again and\nforever by _regret_, _hope_, and _faith_\u2014unceasingly.\n\nI wished to write this in the first pages of my book to let you know\nthat if I attempt to delineate marriage in modern society I renounce\n_the dying century_, the _fin de si\u00e8cle_, and all such effective\nphrases, which would give me, based on numbers, so many resources of\nrhetoric and sentimentality. I have hated and always shall hate all\nforms of tyranny, including that of numbers. I look around and say,\nthis is the way men marry _to-day_. They do so because they are sons\nof a _yesterday_, which is the father of to-day; then I look forward\nand hope that to-morrow will be better than yesterday or to-day, and\nI endeavour to promote the good as quickly as possible and with a\nminimum of pain, by my pen, my experience, and my studies, _cito tute\net jucunde_, as Celsus has it.\n\n\u2042\n\nIn our civilized society, marriage is _the least evil_ of all the\ndifferent modes of union between man and woman for the preservation of\nthe race. It is the result of many historic evolutions, many sensual,\nmoral, religious, and legislative elements, which have come into\nconflict with each other in the course of time.\n\nRemote atavism of the ravishment of the female, holy words of inspired\nprophets, imperiousness of feudatories, avarice of usurers, transports\nof love and heroism of hearts, have all left something of their own\nupon the altar of matrimony. But before the sacrament was finished and\nthe priest sent up the fumes of his incense, animal man came leering\nand saying:\n\n\u201cThis is my affair. I am the sole and true priest of this rite. I am\nthe only minister of this religion.\u201d And mixing the divine and human\nvows on the altar with his hairy hands\u2014perhaps, too, with his tail\u2014he\nformed a chaos of things most opposite, from the highest to the\nlowest, from the most sublime to the most ignoble. And this, then, is\nmarriage.\n\nTo curse this love sanctified by vows is useless, to suppress it is\nimpossible, to substitute something better is absurd (at least for the\npresent), and nothing remains but to accept it as the least evil of\nsexual unions, and to ameliorate it gradually, prudently, and wisely.\n\n_By free choice on both sides, enlightened by reason._\n\n_By the guarantee of divorce._\n\n\u2042\n\nNeither the prince nor the proletariate needs this book of mine. The\nfirst marries worse than any citizen in his kingdom, for dynastic\nreasons, without love or sympathy. With him it is first the throne,\nthen the family; first the alliance of his colours, and then if there\nis room, the kisses of love. It is true he may console himself with\nthe vulgar and easily won embraces of a pandering Venus; he may also\ntake advantage of one of the most ridiculous remnants of the Middle\nAges, the morganatic marriage. In all cases the ministers, deputies,\nnay, even journalists provide him with a wife. The art of taking a\nwife is for him, therefore, _nonsense_.\n\nThe proletariate, more fortunate than the prince, may choose the woman\nit loves, and in its choice may take advantage of the counsels of\nthose who have loved and sinned much. But it does not read books, for\nthey cost too much; and when by law its individuality is cancelled\nfrom the statistics of the illiterate, it has no time to read, for\nthe tyranny of bread oppresses it.\n\nTherefore I write for neither prince nor proletariate, but for all\nthat human multitude who live and move between the extreme poles of\nmodern society and who constitute the true nerve of the nation.\n\nIn what way do all these millions of males and females combine?\n\nIn different ways, but amongst them marriage is the only legal\nfoundation of the family permitted by morality and approved by\nreligion. All others are contraband, moving on cross-roads either\nalone or in company, but all, in one way or the other, defrauding\nnature, with an eternal envy for those who have honestly paid custom\ndues on entering the city.\n\nWithout fear of going far wrong, one may say that in whatever society\nthere are the greatest number of married people, there one will find\nmore morality and decorum, and consequently the number of those who\nlove and nourish their love by seduction, whether it be with the armed\nhand on the public road, or clandestinely under the form of domestic\nrobbery, will be less.\n\nBesides this, our modern society is suffering from _gold fever_; a\ndisease which is as old as man himself and has taken the form and\ncourse of a real epidemic; this contributes more than any other\nelement to corrupt the roots of marriage.\n\nDiffused instruction and the many social exigencies have increased\nour needs beyond measure; more especially those which are more\ncostly, that is, those of the intellect and the higher \u00e6sthetic\nemotions, without in any way enlarging the sources of production.\n\nFrom birth to death, the balance of home life oppresses us, torments\nus; its arithmetic pierces through the skin with the acute points of\nits figures, reaches our very viscera and, alas, our hearts also;\npoisoning every pleasure, spoiling all the holy and happy poetry of\nlife. Invited as all are to the genial table of modern civilization\nwhich offers us so many new delights, we are like the poor government\nofficial, who, for appearance\u2019s sake, allows himself to be carried off\nto a ball, and between the bars of music and the full glasses, feels\nhis pocket anxiously, wondering how and when he will be able to pay\nthe score.\n\nWith what difficulty some of the money is drawn from the poor purse of\na middle-class man! How many pangs has it not caused before it sees\nthe light of day, accompanied by the last caress of the convulsive\nfingers! How unequal the comparison between those who live on an\nincome of one thousand and three thousand francs! And, from the ever\nincreasing fever of desires, the gnawing of all vanities, and the\nvanity of the classes, how these figures increase daily until they\nreach to ten, twenty, or thirty thousand francs!\n\nAnd this is the reason that whilst love alone should prompt to\nmarriage, it is nearly always the last party in the contract, in which\nmoney judges and directs according to the need of it, with all the\nimperiousness of one who knows himself to be unconquerable.\n\nMoney, money, always money! It is the first and supreme arbiter of the\ngreater number of marriages.\n\nTo take a wife means to become poor, if the wife does not help to\nbuild the new family nest; it means to walk with open eyes into a\nbottomless and dark abyss; it signifies condemning one\u2019s self to the\ndaily torture of poverty, and to dedicate the children yet unborn to\nthe same struggle.\n\nOur dignity would demand that the wife\u2019s dowry should not enter into\nour choice at all. The true ideal would be the ability to offer to our\ncompanion riches, or, at least, a competency with our heart and hand,\nso that we could say:\n\n\u201cSee, beloved; all that is mine is thine. However much I give you, I\nshall always be your debtor, for you have given me your love.\u201d All\nthis is noble and grand, and every man who is conscious of the power\nof his own moral and physical manhood would wish to say so. But how\nmany really can?\n\nExceedingly few; hardly any.\n\nAnd then the young man who would seek to love in the way of the Lord\nis discouraged and renounces marriage, in which he only sees the\ndoor to misery or cowardice. He renounces it frankly and forever. Are\ncelibates more honest, and how far does their honesty extend?\n\nWith the most honest, virtue extends to an unwillingness to betray\nthe purity of the maiden, or the faithfulness of other men\u2019s wives;\nextends or rather descends, to making the service of love a question\nof periodical hygiene _regulated_ by the rubric of the calendar and\nby that most imperative one of the lunar month. Poor love, poor\ntranslation of the most epic poem of life! It is as though one were to\ntranslate Homer into some Australian dialect!\n\nThese bachelor hygienists are however a small minority. Others pretend\nto something more and better, and make love in the houses of others,\nand live by abject and cowardly seduction, and perhaps usury.\n\nThis is the most sordid and cancerous sore in our modern marriage;\nthis is the gangrene of our society, which spreads an asphyxiating\nfetor of domestic treachery, of moral infection, which contaminates\nand infests everything. Woe to us if in every family the newly born\ncould proclaim aloud the name of their father! How many false,\nliving bills of exchange would be protested, what long faces amongst\nbiologists who ingeniously study the law of heredity; what a terrible\npicture of treachery and dissembling! human and civilized society\nwould appear all at once like a band of false coiners, and the\nwoman\u2019s womb nothing but a mint of false money.\n\nBut the newly born can only weep\u2014the first salutation to life\u2014and\nthe wombs of women are silent, and continue their business of false\ncoinage.\n\nAnd yet I do not blame the woman more than the man, in this galley of\ntreachery, this wide-spread and clandestine manufactory of bastards.\nIf man assails the woman, and plots against her virtue, he avails\nhimself of the rights of life. If society does not permit him to\ntake a _wife_, why should he not share the bread of him who has\ntoo much to eat? Do not the workmen of Europe declare daily, that\none of the first rights is that of work? And is not the right of\nloving perhaps more sacred; the work of works; that for which nature\nsacrifices the individual, and to which it consecrates the best of its\nenergies? Husbands defend these rights, we attack them. If they are\nconquered\u2014_tant pis pour eux_!\n\nAnd the poor wives, why should they not brighten the ennui of the\nnuptial bed with some little love affair? Were they not bound forever\nto a man they had never loved, whom they had perhaps seen only once?\nWere they not sold by their parents, guardians, and matrons, like\nmerchandise? Was not their dowry rated at the weight of a coat of\narms? and have not they also the right to love? And all the others\nwho have had the good fortune to love the man who has given them his\nname, and have thrown themselves into his arms, giving him their whole\nhearts, happy to be able to transform themselves in him and for him;\nwho dreamt of making marriage a synonym of love, and who instead found\nthe husband in a few months in the arms of an old love; have not all\nthese women the right of vengeance? This is matrimony as it is daily\nrepresented in the many small theaters which we call men\u2019s houses.\n\nIn these theaters, however (one must be just and not exaggerate),\nthere are more farces played than comedies, more comedies than dramas.\nTragedies are rare. For this high form of dramatic art heroes are\nrequired, and they are very scarce in modern society. We have made\nour houses, statues, pictures, and gardens smaller, and have been\ncompelled to reduce our feelings also.\n\nThe pistol and dagger, too, figure in the chronicles of matrimony, but\nas phenomena. In the home-theater, on the contrary, the punishment of\nretaliation, the little basenesses, the stirring of conscience, under\nall forms and at all sorts of prices, are in common use. The _m\u00e9nages\n\u00e0 trois_ (aye, even four) are pretty pictures in kind; and the\nhypocrisy of husbands who will not see, because they detest scenes,\nfigure every day in the running account of modern matrimony.\n\nLive and let live\u2014to apply the noble modern institution of\nco-operative societies to the family; and raise aloft the banner of\nthe association of forces. One for all, and all for one!\n\n\u2042\n\nInfidelity and treachery are not the only moths which corrode\nmarriage. We have all the domestic discords which spring from the\ninequality of the needs of intelligence, heart, and habits of thought;\nwe have the partisans of the wife and those of the husband, who\nquarrel amongst themselves, complicating the problem, poisoning the\nwounds, opening with every touch the cicatrices which time and love\nwere so pitifully healing.\n\nIf war is an exception in matrimony, peace is still more rare; and\none may safely say that in the greater number of cases it is an armed\npeace, an atmosphere which relaxes the strength, dries up the purest\nsources of tenderness, and destroys its happiness. In a word, as our\nsociety is constituted in the present day, hell is not common in the\nfamily circle, paradise exceedingly rare, but purgatory is almost\nuniversal.\n\nAnd yet marriage is still the _least evil_ amongst the unions of\nthe man and woman; it can and ought to grow continually better and\nincrease human happiness; which is for me the highest and truest end\nof progress.\n\nWhat is the use of being able to run through space at the velocity of\nseventy kilometres an hour, or to go round the world in seventy days;\nwhat the use of being able to talk through the telephone or see the\nclouds in the sky of Mars; what the use of so great a fecundity of\nbooks, of such a deluge of journals, if one is unable to increase the\npatrimony of human happiness by even a farthing?\n\nAt the present day marriage _may_ be happy, just as one _may_ become\nrich by playing in the lottery, but whilst one door opens to the\npossibility of good, two open to that of evil. He who utters the fatal\n_yes_ before the Syndic girded with the three national colors, lets\na grain fall in the scale that holds our happiness and two in the\nscale that holds our misfortunes. It is his duty to do the opposite;\nit is the duty of society to defend matrimony from the perils which\nthreaten it, by wise laws not inspired by the arcadian tendency of the\nheart, nor by theocratical mysticism, but by a profound knowledge of\nman.\n\n\u2042\n\nAbout twenty years ago I broke a lance in favour of divorce in my\n\u201cFisiologia dell\u2019 amore,\u201d and hoped at that time to have seen it by\nnow included in the laws of my country.\n\nTwenty years ago I wrote:\n\n\u201cDivorce ought to be included among our laws as soon as possible:\nhappy couples solicit it to secure their dignity, wounded by a\ntyrannical tie; the unhappy implore it on their bended knees, those\nwho by misfortune or fault are condemned to the most supreme of human\ntortures: that of a slavery without redemption, of a yoke without\nrest, of a scourge without balm, of a grief without hope.\u201d[1] Even\nto-day divorce is not made a law among us, but public opinion demands\nand will have it. No one in the present day dare defend it with the\nbroken arms of the Church; but many defend it still in the name of the\nchildren and of the sanctity of the family.\n\n[1] \u201cFisiologia dell\u2019 amore,\u201d Milano, 1873, p. 338.\n\nThere are too many innocent victims of matrimony for their voices not\nto be heard; and when the law-giver knows how to surround divorce with\nall the most delicate guarantees, he will increase the sanctity of the\nfamily and free the children from the cruelly abject spectacle of\ntheir two parents living under the same roof hating each other, with\nhomicide in their thoughts, bearing the chains of convicts, without\nthe courage or the strength to break them.\n\n\u2042\n\nLegislators must do this, the rest of the duty lies with those\ndirectors of the mind who are called writers, masters, and educators.\nThey ought to teach the woman to know what love is, and what matrimony\nis, so that she should not give herself, bound hand and foot, to a\ncontract which she knows by hearsay only, nor enter the dim future\nguided by paternal, maternal, or religious authority alone.\n\nThe possibilities of misfortune are a hundred times greater for the\nwoman than for the man, for she is always more ignorant of things\ngenital than we are, and goes to the altar or municipality ignorant of\nall, dragged like a lamb to the slaughter-house.\n\nAt the present day, under the customs to which our society conforms,\nthe only profession of woman is that of wife and mother; and to this\ncalling she is instructed from infancy, not to be an exemplary wife\nor perfect mother, but, if possible, to find a husband, and that an\nideal one, one who is handsome, young, and above all rich. She is\nsecretly and cleverly instructed in the art of hunting that rare\ngame, a good husband; not in order to make him or herself happy,\nbut to increase her income and to rise a step or two in the social\nscale. If in comfortable circumstances, she must become rich; if rich,\na millionaire; if civilian, a countess; if countess, marchioness\nor princess. This is what she is to aim at; all her education has\nbeen directed to this end. Now, marriage should rise from its lower\nposition of a business transaction to the higher one of a union of\nhearts and thoughts, and neither of the two companions ought to be\nable to look at each other with anger and think:\n\n_You bought me._\n\n_I sold myself._\n\nNothing can cleanse us from this original sin, which contaminates\nmatrimony. In vain do the comforts of riches, the pride of a high\nposition, the excitements of domestic sensuality, throw flowers over\nthe wound to hide it. At the least quibble, the least cloud that\ncovers the heaven of the double life, one hears the fatal words:\n\n_You bought me,_\n\n_I sold myself,_\n\narising from the depths of the troubled conscience like a voice evoked\nby some evil spirit.\n\nAnd when neither riches, sensuality, nor vanity have a rag wherewith\nto cover the cancerous sore, the naked and dreadful spectre of an\nunsuccessful speculation, of unsuccessful business\u2014then bitterness\nis added to bitterness, and the domestic warfare which has become\npermanent, angry, and poisonous, developes into a chronic despair, the\nmost heart-rending form of human pain. Even this is not all; as in an\nattack of neuralgia the deep-seated and continual pains become sharper\nand more intolerable at certain moments, taking on a piercing and\nstab-like character, so it is with the deep-seated and dumb despair of\nthose two unfortunate beings. Every now and then the inexorable cry\nsounds, and thus it goes on until the last breath.\n\nLet divorce come then, and quickly, to set all these slaves free; let\nthere be a wiser and more liberal education, to teach girls what they\ndo not know or know indifferently; so that they, like ourselves, can\nfreely say their _yes_ before the altar or the magistrate with perfect\nknowledge and understanding.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nSEXUAL CHOICE IN MARRIAGE.\u2014THE ART OF CHOOSING WELL.\n\n\nThere are two principal ways by which we may arrive at the fatal\n_yes_, that terrible monosyllable which must decide our happiness or\nmisfortune; that _yes_ which may make for us a paradise on earth, or a\nhell of twenty-four hours for every day in the 365.\n\n_Either love first and marriage after, or marriage first and love\nafter._ Which of these two ways is the better, and the most certain to\nlead us to the paradise of two?\n\nTheoretically, the answer cannot be doubted; one ought to love first\nand marry after.\n\nIn practice, however, it is not always so. Many marriages inspired by\nlove end badly, while others, planned by reason more than the heart,\nturn out well.\n\nAnd why? If the theory is true, it ought to accord with the practice,\nand if it contradicts the practice the theory must be mistaken.\n\nThe apparent contradiction can be explained at once if we reflect\nthat love is every day spoken of as the desire for the possession of\nthe woman, and this alone is certainly not sufficient to make two\npeople happy. Give love and lust their real names and every difficulty\nimmediately disappears, and we then see the happy dogma, _Love first\nand marriage after_, shine out in all its splendour. If by legal means\nalone a man can possess the woman he loves and if the passion be\nviolent, the greatest libertine, and even the enemy of matrimony, bow\ntheir heads under the _Furc\u00e6 Caudin\u00e6_ of female virtue and the civil\ncode, and marry. It is a stony road and full of pitfalls, but one\nwhich, nevertheless, may sometimes lead to the happiness of the two.\nGradually there becomes associated with the desire of the senses, that\nmore valuable sense of the affinity of hearts, and when the desire\nis satisfied there remains still the enjoyment of the more delicate\ndainties of the understanding and affection. To transform lust into\nlove is a difficult work, but worthy of woman\u2019s holy virtue, and the\nwoman can succeed in doing so, even when possession has cooled desire\nand age dimmed her beauty; but she must be a sublime being and possess\nlasting gifts of sentiment and thought; if her companion be also an\nelect soul, who knows how to value this lasting and solid virtue, and\nwho understands ideality of spirit as well as grace of form, so much\nthe better.\n\nSublime beings and elect souls are always exceptional, and if, in the\ninnumerable crowd of husbands and wives, they have reached the _yes_\nby the way of desire of the flesh, they soon find that the game was\nnot worth the candle, and that the muddy swamp of weariness and animal\nfamiliarity of sex follows upon the first outburst of voluptuousness.\nThe woman sometimes succeeds in fanning and reviving it with\ninexhaustible coquetry, but one gets scorched, and the distaste may\nbecome even more obstinate the more ingenious are the remedies used\nto oppose it. A marriage inspired only by the desires of the flesh,\nmaintained only by the bread of lust, is a very poor and abject thing,\nthat can very rarely give peace to the mind, and much less happiness.\nEven in the most vulgar and sensual natures, there is something that\nrebels against the permanent animal, and raises its voice in demand\nfor a more human form of food. Man, like the swine, wallows in the\nmud, but with this difference: he likes to wash himself, and to look\nup to the heavens from the trough. It must be added that in marriage\nthe dignities of father and mother only increase the responsibility of\nthe two consorts to animate and enlarge the human nut at the expense\nof the animal pulp. The spirituality of the family impresses itself\nupon the coarsest nature and the most obtuse nerves, by warming the\natmosphere and revealing a streak of blue in the heaven above.\n\nWoe to the man who, in solitary and sad contemplation of his wife,\nsays to himself: _My companion is only a female!_\n\nMuch worse is it, and woe to that woman who, in the night watches,\nlooking at her husband as he snores, says in a low, fretful voice:\n_My husband is only a male!_\n\n\u2042\n\nThere is hardly a man who would confess to his friends, or even to\nhimself, that he married a woman to possess her. Even if it were true,\nmodesty and pride fight against the confession, and with one of those\nclever self-deceptions with which we know how to embellish and deceive\nour own consciences, we exclaim in a decided and convinced tone, _I\nlove her!_\n\nIf it be so difficult a thing to distinguish between gold and its\nalloy, true and false diamonds, eastern and Roman pearls, imagine\nwhether it is easy to distinguish between the desire of the flesh and\ntrue love. Yet this is just one of those most dangerous and hidden\npitfalls which bring death to happiness in the battle waged in our\nminds between the to be or not to be, when we have to decide whether\nor no we ought to give the holy name of wife to the woman we desire.\nIn other books of mine I have ventured to give some advice to those\naspiring to matrimony to enable them to distinguish between true love\nand carnal excitement, which only affects one organ.\n\nAs I believe, however, that we have here before our eyes one of the\ngravest and most vital questions in the art of taking a wife, I may be\nallowed to enter more minutely into particulars.\n\nAlways doubt a sudden impression, so called a _coup de foudre_, if it\nhas seized you after long abstinence from woman\u2019s society.\n\n\u2042\n\nFor love also, and perhaps more for love than for the brain, it is\nprudent to remember the fasting Philip.\n\n\u2042\n\nIf you fear being enamoured of a young girl and are not disposed\ntoward marriage, go and see all the married and young ladies most\nfamed for beauty, grace, and elegance, and make your comparisons. If\nthey be unfavourable to her, doubt directly the seriousness and depth\nof your passion.\n\nThis has to do only with what we call physical love, but I speak of\nit at some length as it is the first door opened when a man and woman\nsee each other for the first time. But I do not mean that it is the\nonly one which leads you to the fatal _yes_. It ought only to give you\nan entrance into the ante-chamber where you must wait patiently until\nheart and mind open the doors of the inner rooms, where you will have\nto live all your life.\n\nIf there has been no _coup de foudre_, but the sympathy came\ngradually, developed and grew until it became a real passion, then\nall my counsels of examination and experiment will be perfectly\nuseless. At each visit you unconsciously, and without thinking of it\nat all, correct or confirm the first impression\u2014now trimming, now\nincreasing the warmth of the original sympathy. How many wooings,\nhow many marriages have miscarried in our fancy without our knowing\na word of it, or even having spoken an affectionate word to the\nperson who awakened so sudden and strong an impression in us! A being\nsuddenly appeared on the horizon, perhaps in an hour in which we felt\nthe weight of solitude, the tortures of abstinence, and we said to\nourselves directly: What a charming and sweet creature! Why do I not\ntake her for mine ... and forever?\n\nThe apparition passed from our gaze, but we carried it home with us\ncarved, or rather written, on our minds in fire. We saw her between\nthe lines of the book we read, in our dreams, everywhere.\n\nA few days later we see her in the street, or in society, and we\nvainly endeavor to reconcile the reality with the figure we saw in\nour imagination. The discord is complete. The woman is not the same,\nand smiling to ourselves over the love which we had dreamt of in the\nsilence of our minds, we exclaim, \u201cHow could I ever have admired this\nvulgar, ugly, faded creature and wished to have her for my own!\u201d\n\nIt is well, indeed, when the sketch can be corrected so soon;\nunfortunately it sometimes occurs after several visits, when we may\nhave compromised our heart and perhaps our word.\n\nPrudence, then, _adelante Pedro con juicio!_\n\n\u2042\n\nScience teaches that no force in the world is lost, no energy\nconsumed, but that force and energy transform themselves one into the\nother without loss at all. Then I ask myself\u2014but all the desires that\nmen and women breathe out in the streets, in society, in theatres, or\nwherever they meet, where do they end? All those glances of the eyes\nwhich carry fire enough in their rays to burn and consume the whole\nplanetary system; all those heart beatings which make the face burn\nand attract two beings, two organisms, two lives to each other; when\n(as in most cases) they pass like meteors without fructifying the\nearth, where do they go? Those terrible energies, the fruit of the\nmost intricate and sublime mechanism of our brains and nerves; into\nwhat do they transport themselves when they produce neither words,\ntears, lust, crime, matrimony, nor sin?\n\nAnd yet these desires are many; they meet day and night in the crowded\nstreets, in the whirl of railway carriages, in the dense crowd, in the\nsolitary mountain paths; they plough through space, and if we were\nable to see them we should see the air lighted up by them as by the\nconvulsive lightning of a tropical tempest.\n\nBut where do they go? Where is so much light consumed? Who warms\nhimself with all this mighty heat? And where are the ashes of such a\nfire?\n\nI know not; perhaps biologists and physicists of the future will tell\nus.\n\n\u2042\n\nAnother elementary, but most important aid toward the wise choice of\na wife, is to see a large number of women before choosing her to whom\nyou wish to give name, heart, and life.\n\nIf you have chosen your companion in the narrow circle of a village\nwithout leaving it, you may be proud to have gained the prettiest girl\namong a dozen companions. But woe to you, should you suddenly go to\nother villages, or still worse to some large city; you may find the\ncomparison odious, most odious, and yet irremediable.\n\nThis is why men who have seen and travelled a great deal generally\nmake the best husbands; for making their choice on a larger basis,\nthere is great probability of their choosing well, and perhaps also\nfor another reason, women more easily pardon some former gallantry in\ntheir fianc\u00e9s than a too ingenuous virtue. Don Giovanni has always\nseemed more pleasing to them than the chaste Joseph.\n\nA woman who knows that she is preferred and chosen as a companion, by\none who has seen and known a hundred or a thousand other women, is\nproud of it, and with reason.\n\nI do not know if all women will share my opinion, but those who know\nmost of the science of love will most certainly think with me. Were\nI a woman, my ideal of a husband would be a man who had travelled in\nall the six parts of the world, and had seen and admired all the women\nthere.\n\nAnd continuing my Utopia, but bringing it down to the level of earth;\nwere I a woman and had I doubts about the sincerity of the passion\nawakened in my fianc\u00e9, I should wish him to make a journey through\nall Europe which should last a year, and if on his return he still\nfound me worthy of him, I would give him my hand with the certainty of\nhaving a loving and faithful husband.\n\nTime is a valuable element to add weight to our choice; it is one\nof the best gauges of comparison by which to distinguish true love\nfrom carnal excitement. It is an old axiom, confirmed by universal\nexperience, that time cools and extinguishes the small attacks of\nlove, but strengthens and invigorates the more serious ones. The\nfatal brevity of our lives, the natural impatience of all those in\nlove, conspire together to hasten marriage, but as far as I know and\nam able, I recommend men and women to acquire the sainted virtue of\npatience. I pray women again and again in their love affairs (in which\nas people say they are more _men_ than we are), to follow the tactics\nof Fabius the temporizer: wait, wait, and still wait. Love is centred\nin a most serious moment, one most pregnant with consequences to our\nwhole lives, and a month or two more will only increase the dignity\nof the choice, and be a guarantee for the future. The honeymoon will\nshine all the longer above our horizon, the more we wait for it, with\nthe poetry of desire and the ideality of hope.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nAGE AND HEALTH.\n\n\nIf a man were only a generating animal, the problem of age in marriage\nwould be very simple, and reducible to this formula: That as long as\nmen or women can relight the flame of life they are _marriageable_.\n\nThat means that a man may marry from sixteen to sixty, and in\nexceptional cases up to seventy and eighty; and that he may marry a\nwoman of from fifteen to forty-five.\n\nMan, however, is not solely a generating animal, but a thinking,\nreasoning, sentient, cavilling, wrangling being; a political,\ncommercial, and religious creature; he manufactures brakes to curb\nthe exhilaration of the gallop downhill, creates sophisms to spoil\ntruth, and crutches to make athletes rickety; he tells many lies for\namusement; in short he is the most clever and ingenious artificer in\nthings of which he knows very little, in the whole planetary universe.\nNotwithstanding all these precious virtues, man finds the problem of\nage most complicated, when he wishes to take one of the daughters of\nEve and say to her: \u201c_Will you give me your hand, so that we may form\na little future for ourselves?_\u201d\n\nAll other elements being favourable, the ideal perfection in age as\nregards marriage would be as follows:\n\nThe man to be from twenty-five to thirty-five.\n\nThe woman from eighteen to twenty-five.\n\nThe man should always be a few years older than the woman, that is\nfrom five to ten years older, and this for many reasons. Man grows\nolder more slowly than woman, and keeps his power of reproduction\nlonger.\n\nBefore twenty-five or thirty years of age a man, unless he be a born\nlibertine, knows comparatively little of the world of woman, and that\nonly the worst, and in his choice of a wife may make a terrible\nmistake.\n\nThen, also, the products of a too early union are weak and inferior;\nthe statistics of all countries show that there are more deaths among\nchildren of young parents than of older, or if they live, they are\nmore weakly.\n\nIn the most simple problems of marriage, as in the most complex\nand metaphysical, it is always better to remember the fundamental\ndoctrine, that harmony and happiness are founded on the agreement of\ntwo very different instruments, which ought always to accord with\neach other. We should pay attention, then, to false notes! If in an\norchestra two instruments do not strike the right notes, or if one\ngoes too fast and the other too slow, it is a very small matter, and\nends in a grimace upon the brow of the few who understand music.\n\nBut in marriage the slight discord is a wound in the heart of two\nbeings, who had joined hands for a happy life; and there is always a\ncicatrix left, which, like the wounds of veterans, acts as a barometer\nto the least change of temperature, of moisture, or of an atmosphere\ncharged with electricity. The restless hand seeks to stop the sharp\nirritation, and lacerates the cicatrix, changing it to a chronic sore,\nwhich is always painful, but never healed.\n\nOh, men! oh, women, study counterpoint, the harmony and melody of\nthe heart, body, and soul, day and night, if you wish to gather the\nblessed and perfumed rose of married happiness, in the garden of life.\n\n\u2042\n\nBeyond the ideal perfection of number represented by the beautiful\nfigure of two flowering and fragrant young lives, you may have all\nthese possible combinations, which, with a _crescendo_ of perils and\naccidents, render the accordance of hearts and bodies always more\ndifficult:\n\n_Two beings equally mature in age._\n\n_Two old people._\n\n_A mature or old man and a young woman._\n\n_A young man and a middle-aged or old woman._\n\nWe see all these combinations pass daily beyond our eyes, paired\naccording to one or the other of these arithmetical formul\u00e6\u2014formul\u00e6 in\nwhich numbers weigh and govern human happiness with so tremendous an\ninfluence.\n\nLet us study them one by one.\n\n\u2042\n\n_Man adult\u2014woman adult_:\n\nThis is one of the most favorable combinations, the freest from danger\nand painful discovery. If it be true that for this combination there\nis rarer access to the Olympus of ardent love, it is also true that\nshipwreck and cataclysm are rarer also. The navigation is nearly\nalways on a tranquil lake, in a _safe_ boat, under the guidance of\nthat best of helmsmen, good sense.\n\nThe majority of such cases consists of old attachments interrupted\nby unsurmountable obstacles, favoured again by some fortunate\ncircumstance. The two who had loved and hoped for each other in their\nyouth, find themselves free and their own masters, and all at once, at\na single glance, have called up from the depths a bright panorama of\nfond visions, which for some time seemed to have disappeared in that\nabyss which buries and consumes all.\n\n_Do you remember, dear?_\n\n_Yes, indeed I do!_ I seem to see you still at your window on that\nSunday, when, after looking at me so long, you threw me a kiss across\nthe street, when I believed I was hidden by the convolvulus on my\nbalcony.\n\nAh, yes, yes; that kiss was the beginning of a long idyl which I seem\nto see rising from the mists of the past as though by enchantment\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\nAnd from remembrance to remembrance a living and speaking world\nappears before those two once more, but more beautiful and more\nrose-coloured in semblance than it was in reality; enlarged by fancy,\nthe first of artists, gilded by distant reminiscence, which is ever\noptimist.\n\nThe old couple have some wrinkles on their faces and some threads of\nsilver in their hair, but they see each other as they were twenty\nyears ago; and if desires are indolent, and the clasp of the hands\ndoes not set the heart beating; if at night ardent dreams no longer\ndisturb the peace of the passions, an odour of loving friendship\nsurrounds them and binds them closer to each other day by day, and\ngrows hourly more like love and less like friendship. They have so\nmany remembrances in common. They have twenty years of life to recount\nto each other, and relating the sad and joyful events they alternately\nrecount their recollections as though they had in reality lived\ntogether all the while, so that mine becomes thine and then ours,\nand without declaration or trepidation the happy day arrives when,\nwithout any necessity of finishing the phrase or dotting the _i_,\nthe two right hands find themselves clasped together, the lips join\nbetween a sigh that questions and one that answers:\n\n_Really you wish\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014?_\n\n_And why not?_\n\nAnd the _why not_ becomes _because I do_ on the morrow, and the man\nand woman become husband and wife; and almost without agitation,\nwithout accident, they reach in safety the port of sure and tranquil\nhappiness.\n\nI recall two such marriages with emotion, those of Stuart Mill and\nHillebrandt.\n\nTo these serene and tranquil unions children are not necessary, but\nif they come they brighten and bless the house, bringing with them a\nnosegay of flowers and an odour of spring which makes those two happy\nmortals young once more.\n\n\u2042\n\n_Two old people._\n\nAdd some ten years to the arithmetical combination just studied and\nyou will have a lower temperature, but still less danger to the\nhappiness of the two beings who, defying ridicule and prejudice, wish\nto consecrate an old friendship upon the _altar_ of matrimony.\n\nI do not say altar as a matter of phraseology, nor to do homage to the\nreligious ceremony of marriage, but because I am deeply convinced\nthat if there be nothing beyond the union of bodies or association of\ncapital marriage is a sacrilege. The troth of two should always be\nplighted on an altar, whether it be that of Christ or of some ideal,\nof Moses or Mahomet, of poetry or religion.\n\nOld people only marry once, either to win legitimacy for an old\ncontraband love, or to give a legal status to the children. They are\nmarriages of reparation, corrections of proof-sheets set aside for\nmany years and forgotten. They merit our approbation and belong to\nthose good actions of which Christ speaks, which, if done at the last\nhour, make death less hard and allow us to die at peace and at rest\nwith the faith, which illuminates our souls and prepares us to start\nin the train that bears us to eternal silence, or to the golden gates\nof the Christian paradise.\n\nIn the marriage of two old people who love each other, love is no\nintoxicating flower, but a friendship slightly gilded by sexual\nsympathy, which endures longer than the reproductive function even as\nit precedes it.\n\n\u2042\n\n_A middle-aged man and a young woman_: If theory, hygiene, logical\nconcords, and compacts proclaim the truth\u2014which has all the force\nof a dogma\u2014that an old man ought not to marry a young woman, daily\npractice shows us that all these combinations are possible:\n\n  40 \u2640 + 20 \u2642\n  50 \u2640 + 18 \u2642\n  60 \u2640 + 30 \u2642\n  60 \u2640 + 15 \u2642\n  70 \u2640 + 30 \u2642\n  70 \u2640 + 20 \u2642\n  80 \u2640 + 40 \u2642\n  80 \u2640 + 30 \u2642\n  80 \u2640 + 15 or 18 \u2642\n\nAll formul\u00e6, cold and precise as the numbers that make them up, but\nfull of a terrible crescendo of precipices and cataclysms! They arouse\nbefore us the phantom of a perfect pandemonium, and show us the\nhorrors of a hell more dreadful than that of Dante.\n\nHow many tears, how much blood, bathe the path which divides those\nfigures! What deep and hidden hatred, how much revenge premeditated\nduring the night and put into practice in the clear light of day; how\nmany deceptions planned with the cruelty of art; what repentance,\ncrimes, intrigues, bitterness of soul; how many tortures and struggles\nare written between those silent and lifeless figures? Yet, still, you\nwill find the rarest, most complete, and perfect happiness lying close\nto this hell, like an oasis in the midst of a desert.\n\nFor example, there are marriages of which the formula is 60 + 30, and\neven 50 + 18, that are real Edens of delight, where neither the most\nlovely and fragrant flowers of spring-time, nor the sweet tendernesses\nof voluptuousness, illimitable prospects, painless sighs,\nconversation without words, nor all indescribable delights, are\nwanting; and where you have also the charm that belongs to difficulty,\nand all the fascination which surrounds things sacred.\n\nBut why among these mute and dead numbers do we find the extremes of\nhuman misery and blessedness? Why do we see the most noble sacrifices\nand meannesses, the most ignoble baseness and the highest ideality,\nbound together, with a cruel irony, by a malignant fate; why do we\nsee angels and demons dancing together as though enchanted by some\nfantastic waltz?\n\nFor a very simple reason.\n\nBecause the happiness of marriage between an old man and a young\nwoman is nothing but an unstable and difficult balance granted to few.\nBut to those who are capable of feeling it, it brings the sublime\ngiddiness of the great heights. Everyone walks, but few take the leap\nto death. All climb the hills; exceedingly few have stood on the\ntop of Mont Blanc. But those who do not break their necks, nor fall\ninto the crevasses, experience, as they mount the highest and most\ndifficult summit of the Alps, strong and fascinating emotions which\nmake them proud and glad. All problems of life, whether great or small\nor indifferent, always have this dilemma hidden within them:\n\n_To dare or not to dare._\n\nThe Rubicon is either an historical fact, a myth, or a romance.\n\nI leave it to historians to decide; but every practical problem of\nhappiness has its rubicon, at which the whole world pauses.\n\nSome turn back.\n\nSome leap over it.\n\nThe most of them remain still on the bank all their lives, looking at\nthe other side and scratching their heads. After forty years of age\nbachelors or widows stand before the rubicon of marriage and say:\n\n_Shall I go over or not?_\n\nThe larger number wait so long to decide that the forty years become\nfifty and then sixty. The limbs become weaker and the river grows\nwider by the inundations and floods of so many autumns, and thus the\nproblem is resolved by want of resolution.\n\nOthers instead, after a short and earnest meditation, exclaim:\n\n_No, I will not leap it._\n\nAnd both do well, because although the calculation of probabilities\nis rarely applicable to moral problems, yet it proves that the\ncombination of an old man and a young woman is a very frail one; at\nthe least shock it is separated, as with fulminant mercury, chloride\nof azote, and all the infinite array of explosives; then comes a\ndetonation, a disaster, more often a putrid and fetid dissolution.\n\nSome do not scratch their heads, but decide resolutely on the great\nstep and leap.\n\nA difficult and perilous leap in which but few reach the other side\nunscathed. The majority of these intrepid individuals fall into the\nmiddle of the stream, which carries them away in its turbid and rough\nwaters; others plunge directly into the mud up to the body and are\nfixed there, without being able to get out, a ridicule to others, a\ndesperation to themselves.\n\n\u2042\n\nIn that garden of Gethsemane, where all men drink of the cup of doubt,\nin that garden of perplexity which we ought to leave with a _yes_ or\n_no_ and turn to the right or left, knowing that one path leads to\nhappiness, the other to desperation, without knowing, however, which\nof the two ways leads whither; in that garden, I say, my little\nbook ought to serve as a guide to resolve one of the most difficult\nproblems of marriage.\n\nAnd I, who have arrogated to myself this right of counsel, will tell\nwith a loud voice those who do care for my advice, my fundamental and\norganic precept on which all the other minor points must rest.\n\nMarriage between an old man and a young woman may lead to happiness,\nif inspired on both sides by love.\n\nLess surely will it lead to the same end if the love that leads them\nto the altar is all on one side.\n\nIt nearly always leads to unhappiness and ruin if the man is induced\nby sensuality, or the woman by the desire of riches or by ambition.\n\nAnd as this third case is the most common, I will explain at once why\nthose terrible arithmetical combinations are so fruitful in domestic\nmisery, adultery, and let us say crime, including those which the code\ndoes not regard.\n\n\u2042\n\nAt this point I see a malicious reader smiling, and hear him say that\nI ought to be classed among those madmen and deceivers who think they\nhave solved the problem of squaring the circle or of perpetual motion.\n\nYou tell me a marriage between an old man and a young woman may be\nhappy, provided there be love on both sides. But this is an impudent\njoke. You may assure me with equal seriousness that I can catch a\nsparrow if I put salt upon its tail. How, when, and where can a young\nwoman, fragrant of spring, who seeks with eyes, mouth, nostrils, with\nall senses, the pollen which will fructify her and make her a mother;\nhow can she desire or love a man who is already on the decline of\nlife and can offer his companion nothing but lasciviousness framed by\nrheumatism, catarrh, dyspepsia, and cough?\n\nNo, malicious reader, I do not joke; neither have I endeavoured to\nsolve insoluble problems. I sincerely believe a young woman can love\nan old man, but he must still be a man and handsome; for robust,\nflourishing, and cheerful old age has a beauty of its own, and if\nmuch is wanting it has the greatest resources and a certain delicate\nvirtue, too, which a young man does not possess.\n\nLove, too, has so many and such different forms, and is composed of\nso many different elements, that it can vibrate and burn even in the\ngray-headed.\n\nThe last love of Goethe speaks of all these; and the many warm and\nenduring passions awakened in young women by men eminent in politics,\narts, letters, and science join in the chorus.\n\nIf in these loves the ardour of the senses fails\u2014and it must fail\u2014we\nfind much veneration, tenderness, and often a sweet compassion, a\nsentiment that always predominates in the female breast.\n\nYoung men are often bad husbands because they assume too much; they\npretend that love should be laid at their feet, as a tribute due to\ntheir beauty and transcendent vigour. They claim that they have the\nright to be loved for themselves, even when they on their side fulfil\nnone of their duties.\n\nThe old man, on the contrary, feels his own weakness and implores\nlove as a favour, and responds to it with a warm and inexhaustible\ngratitude every hour and every minute. He knows that little is due to\nhim, and contents himself with a smile, a kiss, or a caress, which\nhe doubles and centriples with his unfailing gratitude. He guards\nhis love as a treasure, which may be taken from him from one moment\nto another; he defends it with all his strength, encloses it in a\ntabernacle, and adores it as a god. His companion, therefore, has\nalways the peaceful surety that she will not be betrayed by other\nwomen.\n\n\u2042\n\nThat these unions may be blessed by happiness, the husband and\nwife, above all things, must be _gentle-people_; that is persons of\nhonour, who frankly accept the compact sworn to, without reticence or\nsubterfuge.\n\nBefore the old man utters the tremendous _yes_ he ought to present\nhis account, even increasing the credit and diminishing the debit;\nexplain himself clearly and dot every _i_. Therefore I entreat you\nwhen you make your _fianc\u00e9e_ acquainted with your financial position,\nbe careful that each _i_ has its dot, aye, even two.\n\n\u2042\n\nSuch marriages as we are studying are far more frequent than we should\nat first suppose, and the fortunate cases are also less rare than\nthe theory would lead us to believe; because women are far greater\nidealists in love than we are, and whilst we chiefly seek beauty and\ncarnal gratification, they seek other things of a superior order,\nwhich they appease with the heart of the artist, and the phantasy of\nthe poet. The love of a man for an illustrious but ugly woman is a\nphenomenon rarer than a white fly. The love of a young woman for a\ngreat, but gray-headed man is tolerably common, and is sufficient to\ndo honour to the female sex.\n\nBut a man of mature age has other things besides to offer a young\nwoman: riches, a high social position, many ambitions he can satisfy;\nand he has a whole world of high, good, and pleasant things to lay at\nthe foot of the woman, and can say to her: All this for a little love!\n\nI, of course, understand that these are international exchanges,\nwhich are far removed from love, and approach more nearly to commerce;\nbut the sacred books have often used the words _carnal commerce_\nwithout blushing, and why can there not be a little commerce in\nmatrimony? Provided the balance does not incline too much to one side,\nand there is no deceit\u2014in a word provided the one who weighs be a\ngentleman\u2014such marriages may be happy, too.\n\n\u2042\n\nWhen a man marries a woman very much younger than himself, people\nsmile maliciously and point their fingers as if to ward off the evil\neye, and to show the daring individual that the _Minotaur_ awaits\nhim. In this case the populace cuts not one, but a hundred gordian\nknots with a brutal and bestial sword.\n\nAdultery is a plant that grows in every clime, but more especially\nwhere a woman fails in esteem for her companion, and the clever sower\nand cultivator of these plants is always the husband.\n\nI am so convinced of this truth, that if statistics of adultery were\npossible, I am certain I should find the greatest number amongst the\nunions of young people: for they also make contracts of buying and\nselling, of exchange of titles and dollars, in their marriages.\n\nIf you, with your white hairs, have the courage to marry a young\nwoman, study her character most of all. If she be a thorough lady\nin education she will be less likely to betray you than if you were\nyoung; for she is proud of herself and would not willingly commit a\nsin toward which the world would be so indulgent; for women also like\ndifficult things, heroic undertakings; because they like to say in\ntheir own hearts or throw in the face of their seducer the sublime\nmotto: _noblesse oblige_.\n\n\u2042\n\nThen in conclusion:\n\nIf, with your white hairs, you have the courage to bind your life to\nblond or brown tresses fragrant with youthfulness, place yourself\nnaked before the mirror in your chamber and look at yourself for some\ntime. Then for a longer time put yourself before that other mirror of\nconscience which reflects us so inexorably; and, having balanced the\naccounts of your physical _I_ and your moral and intellectual _me_,\nsee if you are still a possible man, a handsome and strong man; and\nif you find yourself a young woman who is more an angel than a woman,\nmore woman than female, offer her your hand without too many scruples\nor false reticences, and who knows but that when you die, you may then\nbe able to say: \u201cThe last years of my life have been my happiest. In\nmy youth I knew a hundred women, in my old age I have only known one;\nand she alone was worth the other hundred. Woman is the benediction\n_of life_.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\n_A young man and old woman_:\n\nAmongst the discordances of age between husband and wife, none\nastonish us so much, or I ought to say disgust us more, than when an\nold woman marries a young man.\n\nThere is the kernel of a great truth at the root of this scorn, which\nsprings from the very heart of nature.\n\nA man may be a man even at eighty years of age; and I cannot resist\nsmiling when I remember a lady who complained of the exactions of her\ncompanion, a man over seventy. We all remember Fontenelle and the\nDuke of Richelieu, in whom virility was only extinguished with life:\nin the first case the life lasting for a century, in the second for\nmore than eighty years.\n\nA woman, on the contrary, after forty-five, or at the most after fifty\nyears of age, is no longer a woman, and the reproductive faculty is\nentirely destroyed. Hence the marriage of a young man and old woman\nis more contrary to the laws of nature than that of an old man and\na young woman. The one may be fruitful, the other never. Add to the\n\u00e6sthetic exigencies of the man the rapid decadence of the woman after\nthe change of life, and you will understand that the union we are\ndiscussing is one of the most repugnant and repulsive. The motives\nwhich bring such a man and such a woman together are nearly always\nthe most abject, and amongst those that offend the moral sense the\nmost. On one side carnal gratification; on the other the thirst for\ngold; hence, prostitution on the part of the man, the most filthy\nand disgusting in the commerce of love. The man sells his youth, his\nvirility, in exchange for money; and the woman who no longer has a\nright to love, buys it as a merchandise, and is satisfied with the\nvoluptuousness given her by one whom she ought to be the first to\ndespise! A market of lasciviousness and vileness, gold gathered from\nthe mud\u2014a mud, however, which cannot be washed off, and which soils\nhand, conscience, everything it touches.\n\nHowever, for the honour of humanity, such unions are exceedingly\nrare: those who buy and sell and are satisfied with a clandestine\nconcubinage, hide the sin in the deep folds of our modern hypocrisy.\n\n_Maintained, yes; a husband, no!_\n\nA woman, on the contrary, always desires marriage, because she has the\npride of proclaiming to all the world, that, notwithstanding her many\nyears and innumerable wrinkles, the wreck of her form which assails\nher on all sides, she has known how to find a companion at bed and\nboard, who makes her happy.\n\nMan, on the contrary, hides himself on account of the modesty which\nis never wanting, even in the vilest delinquents; and hiding his shame\nin the darkness of a clandestine concubinage, hopes to preserve the\nesteem of men, and the gold he has gained with that reddened face of\nhis. I will persist no longer on this theme because I hope that no\nyoung husbands of old women will ever read my book\u2014they would soil it\ntoo much with their filthy hands\u2014and because I have a great hope that\nthey are all illiterate.\n\n\u2042\n\nHowever, before leaving this lurid argument, I ought to say, for\nthe love of truth, that ancient and modern history register some\nexceedingly rare cases of union between old women and young men, in\nwhich neither the desires of the flesh nor the thirst for gold entered\nat all; they treat of intellectual unions in which the concord of\nsouls, the sympathy of hearts and thoughts, the harmony of taste, the\naffinity of humane propositions, most charmingly unite two persons\nwhom the difference in age would generally divide.\n\nLove is the greatest and most powerful worker of miracles, it is\nthe thaumaturgus of thaumaturgists, and I in the small circle of my\nexperiences know a young man, who has never been able to desire or\nlove a young woman, but adores old women; and if he does not marry\nany of his venerable friends, it is from fear of ridicule. It is true\nthat in this case we treat of an aberration of sexual instinct to\nbe classed with sodomy and incest; but this _pathological nomad_ is\nseated in an otherwise normal and perfect brain.\n\nIntellectual unions on the other hand are physiological facts which\noffend no rights of nature, and ought to be respected and studied, as\nrare, but most noble phenomena of the human heart.\n\nWith regard to the health of those desiring to take a wife, and\nthe health of our companion, I will recommend to them my _Elementi\nd\u2019igiene_, and more especially _Igiene d\u2019amore_, where I have fully\ntreated this vital side of the great problem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nPHYSICAL SYMPATHIES.\u2014RACE AND NATIONALITY.\n\n\nLove is the strongest, the most irresistible, the most fatal of\nchemical affinities, and if potassium can extract oxygen from water,\nunite with it, light it, and make it burn with a bright flame and\nconflagration, consider the case of a man who first sees a woman and\nfeels that she is precisely the atom with whom it is his irresistible\ndestiny to unite, in order to kindle the flame of life.\n\nIt is no longer a simple electro-negative molecule which seeks,\nabsorbs, and consumes the opposite electro-positive molecule, but it\nis an organism, an entire microcosm, which attracts another microcosm\non its own vortex, so as to live united in the heaven of life, as two\nstars above live united in a mysterious and eternal marriage.\n\nThere are all the cellules of the epidermis, and all the pores of the\nskin, which seek the cellules and pores of the other organism; there\nare the inward parts which palpitate, the nerves which vibrate, the\nfeelings which weep and sob, the thoughts that are crowded with all\nthe soul\u2019s expression, and seek those inner parts, nerves, affections,\nand thoughts, which nature has made kin.\n\nNot unjustly was the moment given that applicable French name, _Coup\nde foudre_.\n\nLightning it is\u2014that gigantic force which draws man and woman together\nand makes of them one being. In its minor grades we call the force\nsympathy; a little later, when stronger, we call it love.\n\n\u2042\n\nI detest pedantic preachers of prudence, who make it consist of\nan emasculation of all virility of body and thought; but I also\nappreciate the need of repeating to you:\n\n_Distrust the flashes of lightning!_\n\nPerhaps you will say to me: \u201cThat is the same as preaching the\ndoctrine: do not believe in hunger, thirst, or sleep.\u201d\n\nFlashes of lightning are apparently all alike, but they are\nsubstantially different, one from the other. Some are harmless\u2014give a\ngreat light, deafen one with the rumbling of thunder, and there they\nend. They are momentary eruptions of the senses, and nothing more.\nBut there are others that burn, and cleave asunder all that they find\nin their way. From these no lightning conductor can save us. Either\none is dead or is struck by lightning, which is the same as saying,\nelectrified from head to foot by that force, which has emanated from\nanother body which perhaps needs ours, and which perhaps we need\nourselves.\n\nReason on it if you will, attempt to destroy the new passion in the\ncrucible of analysis. You belong to another; that other belongs to\nyou, if, as often happens, the lightning flash has been reciprocal.\n\n\u2042\n\nThe galvanization of love also occurs in another way, not, that is\nto say, by fulmination, but by small and slow currents which emit no\nsparks, but have continuous emanation.\n\nFirst, a slight sympathy which touches the skin; then a deeper\nirritation like a tremor invades the muscles, nerves, and viscera\nthrough the epidermis, and descends until it finds something living;\nstopping at the marrow of the bones, since there is nothing left to\nelectrify.\n\nTheoretically, this second mode of becoming enamoured ought to be\nmore tenacious and more durable than the first, from the axiom that\nintensity is equal to extension; but practically we see a man and\nwoman reach the same state either by fulmination or by a continuous\ncurrent. It is only a question of time, whether we travel by express\nor slow trains; we reach the same station in safety at last! Love is\nso skilful and powerful a magician that he makes us his prisoners\nmore than once in two different ways. First he strikes us, then he\nelectrifies us slowly, and there is no human or divine power which can\ncure us of our passion. We are no longer individuals, we are things;\nwe are the _perinde ac cadaver_ of the Jesuits, a member of which has\nconquered us.\n\n\u2042\n\nThe admirable laws of chemical affinity are well known to us, and we\ncan follow the kindred and repellent atoms which group themselves\nunder the exact law of numbers. But those other laws which repel and\nattract human hearts and bodies are, on the contrary, scarcely divined\nby one who has eyes to read the great book of psychology, where the\nletters are so minute, the writing mysterious, and even the numbering\nof the pages incorrect.\n\nSympathy should be first physical, then moral, and lastly\nintellectual, following the highroad which leads from the less to the\ngreater, from that which is external to that which is internal.\n\nEveryone knows\u2014even the boccali of Montelupo[2] know\u2014that opposite\ntypes seek and love each other. The blond attracts the brown, and\n_vice versa_; slight, small women please giants and athletes; delicate\nnatures attract bears, and so on. But there are other occult and\nmysterious sympathies, where it is not a case of a combination of\nopposites, and where yet the attraction is exceedingly great and\nirresistible. How often has it been a wonder to us to see an ugly\nwoman adored by a very handsome man, and an ugly man ardently sought\nafter by women, and having witnessed this strange antithesis we begin\nat once to speculate what impure explanation, what vile or illicit\ntrading with money or lasciviousness can account for it, while really\nit is a simple fact of elective affinity, the reasons for which escape\nus from our ignorance and short-sightedness.\n\n[2] Montelupo, a village on the Arno, is still renowned for its\ncrockery and terracotta. It is highly probable that in the feudal\ntimes the mugs and drinking cups, which are called \u201cboccali\u201d even\nto the present time, were made there; they were exported in large\nquantities and became so plentiful throughout Tuscany that when any\nnews was widespread, it was said to be known even by the Boccali of\nMontelupo. Hence the proverb.\n\nLook around you, and in the small circle of your own acquaintance\nyou will find several such singular and extraordinary facts. For my\npart I have under my eyes a young man, the perfection of a man,\naristocratic as regards birth, mind, and income, who, indifferent to\nthe sympathies awakened in women at his every step, is completely\nabsorbed in a woman who is hardly feminine, neither handsome nor\nyoung, and to thousands of others indifferent or contemptible.\n\nI see another young man desperately in love with the ruins of a woman,\nwhere not even the compassionate ivy of coquetry covers the decay and\ndeficiencies, and in whom there is a complete wreck of all delicacy of\noutline. He loved her so much that after many years he made her his\nwife, without any considerations of money.\n\nIt matters very little to your happiness or marriage whether lightning\nor inducted current has electrified you, but sympathy ought to exist\nbetween the man and the woman. For charity\u2019s sake, for the love of\nGod, do not forget this; do not believe in the common proverb, which\nhas made so many victims: _Marry if all considerations of income and\nof age agree. Love will come after._ No! love will not come after,\nexcept by chance, and in exceedingly rare cases. There will come\nto you, on the contrary, reciprocal antipathy, adultery, a lie in\nthe very surname of your children; there will come all those lively\nintrigues through which our fine and virtuous modern society moves.\nIf, in the first choice of love, the man and woman do not approach\neach other with a tremor of holy fear; if their hands do not meet each\nother intoxicated with the touch; if the first kiss be not a passion,\nthe first embrace a delirium, renounce forever the sweet and fond\nblessedness of the dual life.\n\n\u2042\n\nThe physical sympathy between a man and woman is a road which may lead\nto paradise, but how often may one lose one\u2019s self on the road before\nentering the field of affection and thought.\n\nThe only logical people in the world are those savages who, before\ngiving themselves forever, make a trial on both sides, and separate\nor marry, according to the result of the experience. But such moral\nand modest people as we are, must content ourselves with guessing; and\nwoe to us if we make a mistake.\n\nFortunately, the sympathy which is awakened by a mere study of the\nwoman\u2019s outward form nearly always agrees with that deeper one which\narises from the agreement of the temperaments, by reason of the\nsolidity which unites the different offices of an organism.\n\nBut it happens only too often that the interior is different from the\nexterior, and a man of ice has taken for his own a woman of fire, or\n_vice versa_.\n\nIn many codes of law incompatibility of temper is a sufficient cause\nfor divorce, but is not incompatibility of temperament a more prolific\ncause for domestic discord? Legislators and theologians have for some\ntime raised this last veil which hides the shrine of love, but in\ntheir verdict or the clauses of their laws, have they contributed or\nnot to the happiness of matrimony?\n\nI believe not, for in modern codes the duties and genital rights\nof two married people are only confined to the preservation of the\nrace. Beyond that they say nothing, and they do well. But of that\nother unwritten code which guides our individual conduct, do they\nsay nothing, do they teach us nothing? They do not even give us a\nguide-book, or even only time-tables of fifteen centuries, like those\nof the railway. After having studied man and woman for nearly half\na century, after having dared to raise every veil, to sound every\ncavity, to feel every pulse that beats, every nerve that vibrates, as\nphysician, anthropologist, and psychologist, this is all I have learnt.\n\n\u2042\n\nThe ideal of physical harmony between two married people is, that each\none should feel the same hunger, and feel it for the same thing.\n\nBut as this occurs tolerably seldom, it is better that the man, who is\nalways the leader of the orchestra of two, should give the _la_; that\nis, raise or lower the tone so that there shall be perfect harmony.\nThe thing is not so difficult; for if the great masters succeed in\nmaking the hundred instruments of an orchestra keep time and tune,\nshould it not be easier to tune two instruments only?\n\nAbove all, remember that the music has to last many long years, and it\nis better to accustom your companion from the very beginning, so to\nproceed that she may not tire, but may reach the end unscathed. If you\nbegin with quavers and semi-quavers, poor you! Your companion of the\norchestra will accustom herself to that _tempo_, which will become a\nnecessity for her\u2014for you it may be a catastrophe.\n\nEven without supposing an excessive lust in the woman; even if you\nhave been so fortunate as to have found one with more heart than\nfeelings; she will believe she is no longer loved, and in the\nsecret silence of the night-watches will shed tears, measuring your\nlove by the early change in the broken music. Notwithstanding what\nI have written of genital hygiene; notwithstanding that others have\nfollowed me in the same road, throwing down the walls which supported\nthe ignorance of the things of love; women are still too often most\nignorant, and measure love by the notes of music.[3] Think then on\nthe future, which comes quickly, and like a hungry dog devours the\nmiserable present, and from the very first days begin with an _andante\nmoderato_, and if your means permit, go even to the _allegretto_; but\nfor charity\u2019s sake do not proceed to quavers and semi-quavers.\n\n[3] Whilst writing this, a courageous book on this subject has\nappeared in Germany: \u201cDer Kampf der Geschlechter, eine Studie aus\ndem Leben, und f\u00fcr das Leben.\u201d (The Struggle of the Sexes. A Study\nfrom Life and for Life).\u2014Leipzig, 1892. A volume of 173 pp. It is\nwritten by a woman already noted in the literary world in Germany, who\nhas published several novels under the fictitious name of Franz von\nWemmorsdorf.\n\n\u2042\n\nI find I am treading on the field of the hygiene of matrimony,\nwhilst I ought only to speak of _what precedes it_. Without making\nthe experiment of the savages, you would like to know to a nicety\nthe strength of the appetite for love which your future companion\nfeels? Well, then, begin to study her family and, above all, her\nmother, who bequeaths her nervous system to her children, with all\nits accompaniments and connections, with sensibility, chastity, or\ndebauchery. Nothing is more hereditary than the capacity for love, and\nI have under my eyes terrible examples of calamities, which occurred\nfrom a study of the _fianc\u00e9e_ alone, without any thought of her father\nand mother.\n\nI myself advised a dear friend of mine to marry a young girl who\nappeared to be, and had been up to that time, the goddess of modesty,\nthe angel of chastity; I wrote my _milla osta_ on the passport of my\nfriend, and he, who was good enough to believe me a great specialist\nin this abstruse matter, embarked trustfully and happily on the\ntempestuous sea of matrimony. Alas! after a few months the goddess of\nmodesty had become a Mepalura!\u2014I had forgotten to inquire after the\ntemperament of her father and mother.\n\nHaving made the hereditary inquiry, and found the young lady with a\n_clean bill of health_, you must study her.\n\nOn an equality with other conditions, if you desire a tranquil and not\nexacting _wife_, seek these elements in her:\n\nLight hair, blue eyes, fairly stout, a calm expression, natural\nmovements, little or no nervousness, lips rather thin, no protuberance\nof the upper lip. Great love of children, a sure sign of a great\ndevelopment of the sentiment of maternity, which is the most powerful\nrestraint on exaggerated desires of the flesh.\n\nIf, on the contrary, you desire an ardent woman, you will more easily\nfind her with black eyes and hair, dark skin, tumid and thickish lips,\na thin frame. She will be nervous, very sensitive, of a capricious\ncharacter, she will have glances of fire and snakelike movements.\n\nAll these physical and moral lineaments are very gross, and only\nhave value as general observations, such as one reads on passports,\nequally suited to a hundred different people. I myself must make a\ncriticism on these two examples of mine although they are taken from\nlife, and are the result of many repeated observations. As regards\nthe blonde and brunette I ought, for example, to make you at once\naware that I mean to speak of those nations in which there is a great\nmixture of ethnic types, which gives us in the same city, in the same\nvillage, women with light, chestnut-coloured or black hair. Where all\nare light, or all are dark, we still find women of ice and of fire,\nwithout any change in the colour of their skin or hair.\n\nThe fullness of body is of greater importance, for it has a more\nintimate and varied connection with the general nutrition of the\nwhole organism. It is very rare to find an exacting woman amongst the\ncorpulent, unless they are hysterical, and, from the protuberant lip\nand bosom, are condemned to sterility. It is equally rare to find a\ncold woman amongst thin ones.\n\nThe fleshiness of the lip is a good index by which to measure the\nsensuality of a woman, and it is so sure a one that I have given it an\nethnic character, having found it in the most different races of Asia\nand Africa, where polygamy is usual, and physical love is the first\npleasure and first occupation of man and woman.\n\n\u2042\n\nI do not suppose it likely that any of my readers will marry a\nnegress, Hottentot, or Australian savage, so I need not speak of the\nhybridism of races, or the consequences of the possible unions. If,\nbefore I die, I have the supreme joy of writing my monograph on man,\nmy _microcosm_; then I shall be able to tell you my ideas about it,\nconfessing to you at once my profession of faith, which is this, that\nall those who deplore the effects of the union of races, saying it is\nalways injurious to the future generations, are mistaken; as well as\nthose of the opposite school, who always proclaim it to be useful. The\ncrossing of a superior race with an inferior one lowers the first and\nelevates the second, thus giving a product of _medium_ goodness.\n\nThe union of two races equally superior, generally gives an inferior\nproduct, but a product different from the two types who have fused\ntheir blood in the crucible of love.\n\nThe union of a mediocre and elevated race, produces very different\neffects, according to conditions. These, however, are as yet little\nknown, and must be studied by degrees.\n\nIf, however, you will never marry a negress, nor a redskin, and very\nprobably neither a Chinese nor Japanese, it is easy enough for you\nto become enamoured of an English, German, or Spanish woman: and in\nthe present day, when railways and telegraphs bring nations so near\ntogether, and break down barriers; marriage is preparing the way for\nthe future _United States of Europe_, which will certainly become the\nkeystone of a cosmic republic, that of the _Civilized States of the\nWorld_.\n\nThe differences of type and sympathy between opposite natures easily\nprompt to a warm love between dark and fair nations. More than one\nItalian has been obliged to fly from Scandinavia on account of the\nexcessive sympathy which he awakened in those fair innocent daughters\nof the Edda; and if a fair-haired son of Arminius goes into Spain or\nSouth America, it is very seldom that he returns to his mother country\nwithout a wife, or without great spoils won in the mighty victories of\nlove.\n\nIs this a good? Is it an evil?\n\nFor the children it is nearly always a benefit; for married people\nit is often an evil. The felicity of husband and wife is sacrificed\nto the species, and it is your duty to set these different, but\nprobable, consequences of union in the balance and weigh them.\n\nThe differences which we sum up under the word nationality, are not\nas marked as race differences, but they approach them; nationality is\nalways and in every way the complex sum of infinite physical, moral,\nand intellectual elements which make an Englishman so different from a\nSpaniard, and an Italian so unlike a Norwegian.\n\nTo be of a different country from that of our companion implies not\nonly the speaking of a different language but the loving different\nthings, the feeling, thinking, hating, and desiring things unlike. We\nare all living fragments of a long history of many centuries, and to\nunite and make two beings agree who were born under separate skies,\neducated with diversity of taste, with different ideals of religion,\nmorality, politics, and customs, is possible, but difficult and\nuncommon. Look around, and you will find that the most frequent motive\nof these _m\u00e9salliances_ is nearly always some pecuniary interest, or\nelse one of rank, unless an all-powerful love has submerged the other\nincitements toward a reasonable marriage in its tumultuous and furious\nwaves. Amongst other marriages those of American girl millionaires,\nwho come to Europe to exchange their dollars for shields bearing the\narms of our counts, marquises, and princes, are very well known.\n\nThe difference of nationality in two married people is just one point\nlessening the probability of their happiness, and it is aggravated a\nhundred times if a difference in religion is added to the scale.\n\nThere is no great love without great faith, and he who loves much\nfinds the speaking of another language, the following of dissimilar\ncustoms, the praying in a church or mosque, but insignificant\nobstacles. But great love, however long it may last, calms down and\nbecomes a tender and fond habit; and when the sea of passion is calmed\none looks through the water, now grown so clear and transparent,\nand sees at the bottom the points of diversity of faith, taste, and\nhabits, standing up ruggedly, the rocks rising and coming to the\nsurface, and rendering navigation difficult and full of perils. The\nhoneymoon is then hidden behind the dense stormy clouds, and the\nmariners run into the shallows of indifference, or dash the vessel\nagainst the waves of incompatibility and domestic discord.\n\nThe calkers may come with their gold and their coats of arms to patch\nup the wreckage, but it will always be patched badly, and the holy\nconcord of bodies and souls will be lost forever.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE HARMONY OF FEELINGS.\n\n\nFish, birds, and mammals, when they feel themselves fit for love and\nwish to win it, develop new organs, new songs, the newest seductions,\nand with \u00e6sthetic or musical fascination engage in the pleasant\nwarfare of voluptuousness. They show the female all they have of\nthe best, all that is most irresistible, and thus obtain the prize\nof victory. So do men and women. They adorn themselves, hide their\ndefects, and make a show of their beauty, but as the battle between\nthem is fought on a higher plane, each one polishes up rusty virtues,\ninvents new ones, and sends his vices or moral weaknesses to prison or\ninto exile.\n\nPainters, carpenters, artists are about the house from morning to\nevening, in order to make everything clean and bright, as if in\nexpectation of an illustrious guest or a great personage.\n\nAnd they are right, for the guest they expect is no less than love.\n\nThe fish, birds, and mammals cease to sing and shed their horns when\nthe breeding season is over, and become lowly and ordinary, even\nas they were before the marriage. And the companion, who has been\nenticed by the representation now realized, finds no room for odious\ncomparisons or regrets, for she and her mate are already separated and\nneither thinks of the other.\n\nWith man, however, when once the victory is gained, the curtain of the\ncomedy of love falls. But the marriage remains.\n\nIt remains with the defects which return to view, with the vices which\nspring afresh from the pollard boughs; and with the little sins,\nreturning from their exile and creeping home, one after the other.\n\nThis is one of the most fruitful sources of the deceptions of\nmatrimony, and it must be prevented. We ought to discover the real\ntruth, under all the coquetry of the sex, and to know what metal lies\nbeneath the varnish and polish. This artificial beautifying of man\nand woman who woo is not hypocrisy, but a natural and irresistible\ndesire of showing our best to the person we love, and hiding from him\nour worst. But from this innocent desire we mount a flight of many\nsteps, until we come to the blackest hypocrisy, which transmutes brass\ninto gold, glass into diamond, demon into angel.\n\nExceedingly few see clearly when they have the spectacles of love\nbefore their eyes, and love has, not unjustly, been painted from the\nremotest antiquity with his eyes bandaged.\n\nThe lover is so blind, or, perhaps one would rather say, is so\nafflicted with altruism as to mistake colours, and, under such an\nhallucination, to see virtues where there are vices, to find weakness\nof character agreeable, a lie a jest, and treachery a game.\n\nThe most acute spirit of observation, the most profound knowledge of\nthe human heart, do not suffice to protect us from these seductions,\nwhich make us see the loved one through a rose-coloured glass.\n\n\u2042\n\nYet discord of character is the gravest peril, and unfortunately the\ncommonest to marriage, and it may reach such a degree as to oblige\nhusband and wife to separate. Where the law permits divorce, it\nbecomes the terrible situation which, in official and legal language,\nis called _incompatibility of temper_.\n\nAnd what does this dreadful word mean? What monster is this, that can\ndivide what love has joined, that can transform sensual pleasure to\ntorture, honey to gall, heaven to hell?\n\nWhen I write my book, _I caratteri umani_, which I have been\nmeditating and working at for so many years, perhaps I may be able\nto get more light upon this obscure point of individual and national\npsychology. But at present I am satisfied to treat the problem on wide\nlines, and only as far as it contributes to the happiness of marriage.\nIn the mean time let me state the terrible fact, once and for all,\nthat among the many discords which are possible between the man and\nthe woman, none exercises a more weighty influence than that which\narises from want of union in character.\n\nThere may be happiness between a rich man and a poor woman; between\na poor man and a rich woman; an elderly woman and a young man; an\nold man and a young woman; between two different intellects and\neducations; we have rare but well-confirmed examples of harmony\nbetween all these contemporaneous discords. But when characters cry\nout against and strike one another, _Lasciate ogni speranza o voi che\nentrate_; then desperation will be the habitual state of the dual\nexistence.\n\n\u2042\n\nIncompatibility of character does not mean a difference of taste,\naffections, aspirations; for differences are necessary to perfect\nharmony, and the man and woman (we have repeated it a hundred times)\nlove each other better and better the more the man is a man and the\nwoman a woman\u2014which is as much as to say the more different they are.\n\nIn common language incompatibility of character means, for example, to\nharness an ox and a horse of Arab breed to the same carriage; to put\na tortoise and a deer to walk together; to tie a goose and a swallow\nto the same cord, and condemn them to fly together; and if these\ncomparisons fall short of the reality, it is because their enormity\ndoes not reach by a very long way the psychical discords of men and\nwomen.\n\nIn that monstrous pairing of the deer with the tortoise, the horse\nwith the ox, the swallow with the goose, only locomotion is treated\nof; but for the race that a man and a woman must take through life\nit is a matter not only of velocity, but of environment and measure;\nof all that can modify senses, sentiments, and thoughts. To find a\ncomparison which at all suits or pictures truthfully the tortures\nof two badly matched individuals who must live together, I can only\ntake that of a fish and a bird condemned to live together. But this\ncomparison is not even good, for either the fish or the bird would die\nsurely and quickly, but of the man or woman neither dies, but live a\ndeath in life, feeling nothing of life but disgust, pain, and wrong.\n\nConvicts also are paired with a chain without any regard to their\nsympathies, but they have at least the psychical relationship of\ncrime, and often vice, which brings them near each other, and also\nthat other common hope of escape that makes them allies and even\nbrethren; but in that other galley of a badly assorted marriage there\nis not one chain alone, but a hundred and a thousand, all invisible,\nwith as many nerves connecting two existences condemned to the sad\ncommunion of a common torture which is doubled for each by the\nsuffering of the other.\n\nThere is the chain of the heart, the chains of taste and sympathy,\nthe chains of antipathy, habits, desires, and regrets; and along the\nlength of these chains there run currents of spite, hatred, rancour,\nmalediction, vengeance, and retaliation.\n\nThe slightest movement on one side is communicated to the other by the\nchains, and makes that other feel his pain, which he returns doubled\nby its own force and rendered crueller by the desire of revenge.\nSo each wrong has an echo, and the echo is doubled and increased a\nhundredfold, until the whole life becomes a torment, as if every\nnerve had tetanus, and every organ of body and soul was transformed\ninto a tooth suffering spasms of pain. When a long-forgotten wound\nis cicatrised, and a rougher movement than usual re-opens the wound\nanew, in that martyred frame there is not a member which does not\nsuffer nor a single feeling that is not pain.\n\nThis is the meaning of incompatibility of character, which has been\nadjudged with reason by legislators as a sufficient cause for divorce,\nand it is, and ought to be, more so than impotence, bad treatment, or\nany other cause of separation.\n\n\u2042\n\nThis want of harmony in sentiment has only too many and too varied\nforms, but at the foundation there is always this skeleton:\n\n_That which I like you dislike; that which makes you happy makes me\nsuffer._\n\nWoman is an ermine, who allows herself to be killed rather than cross\na field of snow soiled by mud.\n\nMan, on the contrary, is like a chimpanzee, who loves dirt and soils\nhimself with it. There is no part of his body or soul which does not\nlove this mud.\n\nHow can two such creatures live together?\n\n\u2042\n\nHe is an optimist even to cynicism, an egoist even to adoration of\nhimself, and his motto is, _Apr\u00e8s moi le d\u00e9luge_.\n\nShe is a pessimist from having placed her ideal so high that no human\nhand can reach it. She cannot not live an hour without loving and\ndedicating a thought, an act, or a sacrifice to the good of some\nfellow-creature.\n\nHow could they ever live together?\n\n\u2042\n\nHe has never felt the want of the supernatural, and believes neither\nin God nor in a soul.\n\nShe was born a mystic, and the maternal education has made her\nreligious and superstitious. She has a very strong tendency to\nasceticism.\n\nHow could two such beings be happy together?\n\n\u2042\n\nHe is frank, expansive even to imprudence, impetuous even to wrath. He\nsays out straightly what he thinks, swears and curses, only to forget\nwithin an hour the storm which overwhelmed him.\n\nShe is close, shut as with seven seals, timid, diffident, and only\nexpresses the tenth part of what she feels, and even regrets that\nslight expansion. Susceptible as a sensitive plant, she starts if she\nmeets a grain of sand, a hair, or a feather which touches her. She\nfinds an offence and want of respect in everything, suspects evil\neverywhere, and even in good seeks bad intentions with all the zeal of\nan inquisitor.\n\nWill these two live happily together?\n\n\u2042\n\nHe is a misanthrope from indolence and diffidence; he detests society\nand avoids it.\n\nShe adores cheerful society, garrulous and merry talk, theatres,\nballs, not that she may seek an opportunity for sin in these places,\nbut simply because she adores what is noisy and deafening.\n\nJoin these two together\u2014how can they bless matrimony?\n\n\u2042\n\nBy instinct and education he is democratic, detests all forms of\ndespotism from the tailor to the government. He is a socialist, and\nwould be an anarchist if he had not a sound heart and did not love his\nkind passionately.\n\nShe is of a decayed noble family, keeps and adores the family coat of\narms; when anyone from politeness calls her marchioness she reddens\nwith pleasure, and her heart swells with pride. She has a profound and\nsincere respect for authority, and bows reverently before priests,\nsoldiers, millionaires, and princes.\n\nCan these two together bless _life_?\n\n\u2042\n\nHe is avaricious, but will not confess to it; he makes a secret\nof his income to be able to complain constantly of his poverty.\nNothing escapes his domestic financial inquisition. Not a halfpenny\nis given in alms at his door, not a match burnt uselessly. Coffee\ngrounds are never thrown away without first extracting a second and\nthird edition. The querulous wailings of his laments over excessive\nexpenditure and taxation fill the air around him with a bad odour of\nmildew and closeness.\n\nShe is generous, and noble in her hospitalities and charities. She\nlikes enjoyment herself, and to make the enjoyment of others, and to\nhear it responded to by all with \u201cThank you, thank you!\u201d She cannot\nunderstand how one can torment oneself to-day by thinking of the still\ndistant day after to-morrow; even the fascination of an _uncertain\nto-morrow_ allures her. She believes warmly in Providence and Fortune,\nand earnestly defends the thoughtless.\n\nAnd these are husband and wife!\n\nHe is always in a state of febrile excitement or of depression.\nHe declares to all that the most unhappy man is he who feels no\nenthusiasm, and that the most happy man is he who feels everything,\nand hopes that he himself is such an one.\n\nShe instead is always cold, derides every form of enthusiasm, because\nit seems to her a species of madness; detests poetry, all psychical\npleasures, and all passions when they pass 10\u00b0 Centigrade; derides\nheroism, sacrifice, and martyrdom, contenting herself by declaring it\nto be the matter of a novel or a stage play.\n\nAnd these two\u2014can they live happily together?\n\nThese few examples, taken from the stage of the real world, will be\nsufficient to give you an idea of the many discords of character one\nfinds in the union of marriage.\n\nCertainly all are not so flagrant or so keenly accentuated, but they\nare more complex and complicated, whilst the discord is rarely upon\none note only, but upon many together.\n\nAnd what can we do to defend ourselves from the peril of\n_incompatibility of temper_?\n\nIn one way only: by studying and restudying the character of her whom\nwe wish to make our companion for life. After being convinced that she\nwill show herself better than she really is we must make every effort\nto surprise her in undress, or, better still, in a state of nudity.\nNaturally I speak in a figurative sense. I should wish to see her\nnude of all artifices of coquetry and hypocrisy. Begin to examine the\nmoral surroundings in which she lives, and before studying her study\nthe future father- and mother-in-law. She is only a branch of that\nplant upon which you wish to graft your life, and a great part of the\nchildren\u2019s character is that of their parents.\n\nIt is exceedingly rare for a loose, libertine mother to have a chaste\ndaughter, and a lily of innocence is hardly ever born into a family\nof impostors. We have spendthrift sons of a miserly father, and _vice\nversa_; bigoted children of atheistic parents, and disbelievers\nsons of bigots; but as regards moral habits there is very rarely the\nheredity of antagonism.\n\nExamine especially the moral surroundings in which the young girl was\nborn and has grown up; her habits, the books she reads, the amusements\nshe prefers. Gain information as to the character of her friends, for\nin them as in a glass you will often see the soul of the woman you\nwish to make yours.\n\nI know an angelic woman with many friends who vie with each other in\nloving her, and are jealous one of the other for her affection. These\nfriends are all unusual women, of refined tastes, delicate feelings,\nand generous hearts. They all chaunt her virtues in chorus, and,\nwithout knowing, I judged her from her friends to be an angel, and I\nwas not mistaken.\n\nAfter having made your psychological research as regards her parents\nand friends do not disdain to descend to a more humble sphere.\nQuestion her maid, cook, coachman, dressmaker, and the labourers on\nher estate: all those who for one reason or another serve and obey her.\n\nNo one knows us better than those who serve us, for whom we make no\npretence to hypocrisy or ostentation of false virtues, and if a lady\u2019s\nmaid does not know how to make a psychological analysis of the young\nlady she can show us the most intimate secrets of her character.\nNoble, generous, and good natures never ill treat their servants; or\nthey feel all that compassion for them which their position merits,\nand apply toward them the daily and domestic virtues of a tender and\naffectionate benevolence. Always doubt the character of those who\nare changing their servants frequently. They are nearly always ill\ndisposed, and being unable to vent their evil instincts in higher\ncircles, begin to torment their slaves at home.\n\nThey pour forth on the lady\u2019s maid, dressmaker, or hairdresser all the\ndisappointed vanity, hidden jealousy, bad temper, and anger of their\npetty social struggles.\n\nThen if they feel the need of being despotic they satisfy it by using\ntheir power over those poor victims paid at so much a month, and\ncondemned to live on the moral excrements of their masters. I know\nladies of the highest financial and hereditary aristocracy who are\nnot ashamed to beat their maids brutally and cruelly. If you succeed\nin learning this do not overlook it, do not pardon it, but fly the\ncontact of one who will exercise her own evil-mindedness and despotism\nupon you, and later on, upon your children.\n\n\u2042\n\nI prophesy that when you have finished your examination on heredity\nand friendship, and that closer inquiry into your dear one\u2019s home\naffairs, you will find the sister soul to your own\u2014she with whom\nyou will sing the hymn of perfect happiness all your life, the only\nperfect happiness, that of a union of two. But this is the rarest good\nfortune. In most cases you will find neither absolute discord nor\nideal harmony, but a partial accord, which with labor and good will\nyou will be able to convert gradually into perfect harmony.\n\nIf your love is great and deep, if it pours out from the viscera of\nyour whole organism, if she loves you well and enough, rest assured\nthat the rocks will fall to pieces, the mountains be levelled, and the\nthorns be removed, for love is the most skilled magician, and knows\neven how to convert gall into honey. Woman is cleverer than all the\nrest of the world in this thaumaturgic work, and you must really be\nthe most stupid egotist, the most antipathetic creature in the whole\nuniverse, if your companion cannot succeed in making you agree with\nher after a few months. And yet, take care. This harmony ought not\nto be that of a victim resigned or a slave subjected; that would be\nan artificial agreement which lasts a short time only, and thrives\nbut ill. It must be a slow and clever adaptation of the sharpness of\nthe one to the roundness of the other. It must be an intelligent and\ntender acclimation to surroundings, tastes, and habits, so that the\nrebellious sprig may be bent without pain or breaking, so that the\nvine leaves may seem pleased at their connection with the pollard[4]\nwhich supports them, and the bright and ruddy bunches of grapes seem\nto smile with joy on foliage and pollard alike. Happiness, too, is\na tree which requires a wise and loving cultivation. We men are the\npollards; the vine is our companion who leans upon us, bound there\nby the withes of love and of reciprocal indulgence. Above all things\nmarry a good woman, one, too, who loves you\u2014not for the title you\nbear, not for the gold which fills your chests, but because she\nadmires and esteems you, and is proud to bear your name.\n\n[4] It is customary in Tuscany to plant pollards in the vineyards\nfor the purpose of supporting the vines, and these are bound to the\npollards with willow twigs.\u2014TR.\n\nAnd then you may be sure that the little discords of character will\nbe surmounted, and in the indulgence with which your companion so\npatiently bears with your defects you will find every day and every\nhour a proof of that love which will only cease with your last breath.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHARMONY OF THOUGHTS.\n\n\nOught we to marry a silly, an intelligent, or a literary woman?\n\nIf this question were to be answered by public vote we should probably\nhave the following ratio:\n\nFor the silly woman, 10 votes.\n\nFor the literary woman, 0 vote.\n\nFor the intelligent woman (that is, of normal ability), 90 votes.\n\nIn this century, in which the voice of the majority takes the place of\nright and reason, the problem would be solved by that meeting of which\nI have guaranteed the result.\n\nIn all cases, however, this verdict ought to be preceded by many and\nvaried comments if it is to be converted into practical counsels to\nthose about to take a wife.\n\nThe ten who have voted for the silly woman would say that they did\nnot desire an idiot, but, on the contrary, a woman slightly foolish,\nbut not too much so. But together with this defect they would wish\nto have her handsome, young, and very good-tempered. They seek above\nall a companion who helps them to keep healthy and merry. There is\nnothing more charming, more sympathetic, more irresistible, than a\nlittle absurdity from a pretty mouth. It makes one laugh; and when our\nlaugh provokes that of the one who has uttered it, and she shows her\nbeautiful teeth in rows like pearls, oh! bless the folly and her who\nspoke it.\n\nThe ninety who have given no vote to the literary woman wish us to\nunderstand that they like an educated woman, but detest pedantry, and\nthat nothing in the world could make them desire a _bas-bleu_; much\nless a _choupette-bleue_, a variety of the first, so named by Balzac.\n\nHaving heard these comments, let us now make ours. It is only too\ntrue that in our Italian society the general culture is much below\nthat which one meets with in France, Germany, England, and the United\nStates. We have the courage to confess this in our own home if for no\nother reason than with the hope that the shame which mounts to our\nfaces may induce us to remove this national blot from our children.\n\nMen of little culture desire even less in their wives, in order that\nat least in their family circle their credit may be unimpugned. From\nthis arises a general repugnance to teach our girls too many things,\nfrom this comes the antipathy to the higher girls\u2019 schools and to all\nthat tends to elevate the intellectual level of our companions. Up to\nthe present time the hasty and ill-digested attempts have not helped\nto modify public opinion for the better; the only people who dedicate\nthemselves to higher learning in one way or another are the ugly,\nhysterical, or very poor.\n\nWe all open our eyes very widely before a lady doctor or a literary\nwoman as before some wonderful phenomenon which perhaps may change our\n\u201cAh!\u201d of astonishment to an \u201cOh!\u201d of admiration; but the woman will\nalways be a phenomenon to us.\n\nAnd she is really a phenomenon, an idol to put on altars amidst the\nincense of our adoration; she is a woman who thinks as much as a man,\nhas the learning of a professor, writes books that are read, or paints\npictures and makes statues to which are awarded prizes; an idol to\nbe admired if beauty be added to this virtue and if grace accompany\nit; a half goddess or a goddess if the talent does not go arm in arm\nwith pride, and if genius is surrounded by a fragrant and flowering\nwomanliness. But who finds these phenomena, and who, having found\nthem, marries them? Then if the literary woman is ugly, and impolite,\nif her body and voice proclaim the certificate of her baptism, which\nmakes her more man than woman, oh! then we are all agreed in not\nwishing to have her for a wife. It is a new species, a psycho-physico\nhermaphrodite, whose books, pictures, and statues we admire, but whom\nwe have no desire to share a room with.\n\n\u2042\n\nIn sexual union the harmonies of relation ought to show themselves,\nin thought as well as act, in order that there may be happiness.\nTherefore it is that man was made by nature more intelligent than\nwoman. Perfect harmony is only to be found with a man who thinks\nvigorously, does what he wishes with energy; who rules and guides the\nwoman in the paths of life and the glories of conquest. The inversion\nof these relations means to be out of tune and in discord; it is an\nhumiliation on the part of the man, and (let us admit it) on the part\nof the woman also, who in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred wishes\nto be loved, caressed, and also adored, but who likes to feel herself\nruled.\n\nWoe to those women of intellect superior to the husband, whom they\nmust pity, correct when in error, and too often pardon for his folly\nand absurdities!\n\nLove is a chemical affinity; and its composition is proportionately\nstronger the more widely different are the elements in the\ncombination. The ideal of perfect marriage is the combination of a man\nthoroughly a man, _exceedingly so_, and a woman thoroughly a woman,\n_exceedingly so_. Whenever a man acquires a feminine tendency of\ncharacter and a woman a virile one the chemical affinity diminishes in\nintensity, the combination alters at the least touch or first contact\nof a third body which comes near and has a greater affinity for one or\nthe other of the two elements.\n\nA very intelligent woman and a man of less than mediocre intellect\nare combinations of bodies which can only have an exceedingly weak\naffinity between them. The first has a mode of thought which is\nvirile, and the second has a feminine one. And only too often the\nthird element comes to correct the elective affinity, and the literary\nwoman takes a man of genius, who rules her, for a lover, or a robust\nman, who calms her; and the husband of small intellect comforts\nhimself in making love to an illiterate peasant woman, or a maid\nwithout grammar, with whom he can show his intellectual pre-eminence\nand revenge himself on the superiority of his wife.\n\n\u2042\n\nI ask pardon (on my knees if necessary, for I know that my sin is\ngreat) for treating of a more and a less in the measure of thought.\n\nThis is really an infantile or Australasian psychology; but the _much_\nor the _little_ are always the first approximations to the solution of\nevery problem, and the _how much_ always goes before the _when_ and\nthe _how_.\n\nI admit, then, that in the harmony of thought between the man and\nwoman the amount must always be greater on the man\u2019s side. The culture\nof the man is always progressing, and with it inevitably that of\nthe woman also, but this ought always to remain a step below ours,\nnot because we do not wish to lose the pre-eminence of potency, but\nbecause the labour of the brain is more difficult and perilous in the\nwoman\u2019s case than in the man\u2019s, and her energy naturally less.\n\nLook around without leaving Italy and tell me how many _normal_ women,\nhow many healthy and perfect women, there are in our literary circle.\nI will not continue on this theme lest I draw upon myself a shower of\npoisoned darts. Several are my venerated and admired friends, and I\nwish to keep their friendship until my last breath. But if I should\nsay that many of them are sterile, and many very nervous, ought they\nto feel themselves offended? I esteem them too much to believe it!\nMan is so accustomed to consider himself superior to the woman in the\nworld of thought that if he finds an error in the orthography of a\nlady\u2019s letter he is as pleased as if he had found a diamond in the\nsand of a river. That little error, which was made in the hysterical\nhaste of a moment of love\u2019s expansion, is really a diamond, because\nit confirms and assures us of our intellectual superiority, and shows\nus all at once the feminine and seductive grace of the being we love.\nAn error of orthography or even of grammar in a feminine handwriting\nis a wayward little foot, which peeps out from under the skirt of\nthe dress, and hints to us the glories of the sex, the inexhaustible\ndelights of voluptuousness. It is a coquettish curve which in spite of\nthe thick clothing whispers in the ear palpitating with desire: Eve\nlies underneath, Eve who is awaiting Adam\u2014and desires him.\n\n\u2042\n\nHarmony of thought between the sexes ought to spring from the\nagreement of the unlike, and in such a way that no pride should\nbe offended, and each one be satisfied to make a sum instead of a\nsubtraction.\n\nA scientific man and a female artist can form a delightful harmony\nupon two notes; a naturalist also and a woman who adores music;\na psychologist, an inexorable analyst, and a woman who sees the\ncomic side of things at once; and thus there are a hundred other\ncombinations of different intellectual values, which, summed up,\nleave each one contented with his own. Besides special fitness,\nthere is a sexual character which impresses itself upon the thought\nof the man and woman. Man discovers, finds, creates; woman divines,\ndistinguishes, analyses. Man reaps, woman gleans. Man with too great\nhaste, often with too great pride, grasps too much and lets it fall\nfrom its hands; woman walks behind and gathers up what he has lost.\n\nMan has less tact in judging his surroundings, and often gives a\ncuff when he means a caress; woman, on the contrary, like a delicate\ngalvanometer, feels the slightest electric or magnetic oscillation\nin the air which surrounds her, and for this reason she is a most\nvaluable instrument to a politician, a writer, or an artist who\nattempts new roads to beauty, and must conquer the resistance of the\nmajority. Unhappy the man who before printing a book, exhibiting a\npicture, or making a speech in parliament has no loved woman from\nwhom to draw life and warmth. If a sailor never leaves port without\nconsulting the barometer, so man never ought to prepare himself for\nany undertaking without having first consulted that barometer of all\nbarometers, the woman who loves him. How many ships have been wrecked\nfrom want of this precaution, neglecting to take it, through pride or\ninattention!\n\nYou may be the greatest man of genius and your work the fruit of long\nand profound meditation; and yet you may rest assured that in the\ngreat polyhedron of truth some plane has escaped your sight which will\nbe seen by the woman who loves you, because she is a woman, and sees\nmany little things a man does not see; and because she loves you she\nhas a magnifying lens before the eyes of her heart which makes all\nthat may injure or benefit you appear gigantic.\n\n\u2042\n\nIt is very rare when a woman has conquered our moral and physical\nsympathies that we love her less for some discord of thought; but\nif we want ideal perfection we must marry bodies, hearts, and\nintellects. In this case we must seek in our companion a discreet\nculture, an exquisite taste for the beautiful, a delicate spirit of\nobservation, a divination of human character. If you find all this in\none woman, and if she is beautiful and good, you may deem yourself\nthe most fortunate man in the world, and may declare to the whole\nearth that you have not one but three wives, having married intellect,\nheart, and thought.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE FINANCIAL QUESTION IN MARRIAGE.\n\n\nBefore breeding time birds build their nests to receive their future\nyoung and to protect them from the weather. Many men, more improvident\nthan the birds, marry without knowing where and how they can house the\nchildren of their love. Air, earth, and forest afford food to birds\ngratuitously; to man only the butcher, the baker, and eating-house\nkeeper give food, and they have the weakness to ask payment for their\nservices. Economic improvidence in marriage is the bane of all social\ndecadence, and it is precisely amongst workmen and the unemployed,\nor amongst those who are always struggling and succumbing, that one\nfinds it most, for they have become thoughtless fatalists, to whom\nthe day is sufficient. Fatalism has many forms, but it is always a\ncowardly emasculation of self, or an even more cruel mutilation, for\nit undermines the strength of the will and leads us to renounce all\nthat is best in us. In individuals it is emasculation or mutilation,\nin nations it is suicide; the Ottoman Empire will soon show us whither\n_Turkish fatalism_ leads.\n\nI am compassionate, and believe that I pay my debts of charity toward\nthose who have wrecked their life; but when a starving fellow begs\nalms of me, or pleads his _large family_ or _many children_ as an\nexcuse for his moral and physical demoralisation, anger gets the\nbetter of me and I exclaim: _Why, then, did you have so many?_\n\nAnd this exclamation is not an insult to misery nor a curse; it is\nthe voice of reason, which if it could be heard in the homes of the\npoor would suffice to solve the social problem. I am a Malthusian\nimpenitent, and as long as I live I shall always say to those\nstruggling with poverty:\n\n_Love, but do not beget children._\n\nIn vain priests and rugged moralists of _Providence_ combat\nMalthusianism, which has now become a social institution, and without\nthe need of written codes governs the economy of the family in\nFrance, Italy, Germany, and even in chaste and fecund Albion.\n\nIn vain my _Elementi d\u2019Igiene_ were put _ad indice_, for from year\nto year the Malthusian apostolate has made new disciples, and will\ncontinue to do so.\n\nNeither do I side with those who believe, with too great a faith or\nfanaticism, that a restriction in the number of births is sufficient\nto resolve the social problem. No, certainly not; it is not enough;\nbut it clears the ground of the most thorny brambles among which human\nfelicity gets entangled; and a comparison between the proletariat in\nthe populous cities of Europe and that of the desert regions of South\nAmerica is sufficient to convince us that prolific improvidence is\nalso the prolific mother of hunger, disease, and death.\n\nIf, then, you are not a Malthusian, nor desire to be converted to the\nnew doctrine, if you have no straw to build your nest, do not take a\nwife, but increase the glorious number of the animals of rapine and\ncuckoos.\n\n\u2042\n\nI know very well that the most hateful and disagreeable problem\nof matrimony is the economic, but we cannot avoid nor solve it by\nshutting our eyes and disregarding it.\n\nTo love and be loved, to feel that our life is doubled and the\nhorizons of the future enlarged, to drink from the eyes of a woman\nwho is a perfect fountain of delight, to feel the doors of paradise\nopened to us by her lips; and then all at once to be obliged to\nspeak of _income_ and _dowry_ amidst such intoxicating pleasures;\nthen to remember between one kiss and another that to harbour all\nthis paradise we do not possess, I cannot say a house, but not even\nthe most modest of rooms! It is hard, cruel, abominable, but it is\nnecessary!\n\nThe _quart d\u2019heure de Rabelais_ in the affairs of love, and the\nexclamation of the Trappists who at table say to their brethren:\n_Remember we must all die_, are the waiters who, entering the guest\nchamber, present the _bill_ to the gay and thoughtless merry-makers.\nBut in matrimony the accounts must be made out before, and drawn up\nseriously, calmly, and inexorably.\n\nThere is only one man in whose case I could overlook a want of this\nprudence, and it is he who feels that he has the strength to fight\nfor and the energy to gain a position, and to the man who strikes his\nforehead and exclaims, _Numen adest_. What does it matter if such a\nman has no fortune, nor even a dowry with her whom he loves? He has\nfaith in himself founded not upon pride, but upon the consciousness of\nknowledge and power; and this is more than a patrimony, for neither\nphylloxera, bank failures, nor shipwreck can assail it. It will last\nas long as life itself, and its results still longer.\n\nBut how many such men are there? With the experience of more than half\na century I recommend all others to use such foresight as is near\nakin to fear. The whole history of Italian finance, and the whole\nchronology of our innumerable ministers of finance, teach us that the\nbalance of expenditure is always greater than that of the income. Just\nfancy when these are added up by that maddest of treasury ministers\nwhose name is Love!\n\nThe following words must have been repeated more than a thousand times\nbetween a kiss and a sigh, _A cottage and your heart_!\n\nBut common sense has succeeded in throwing so much cold water on the\nphrase as to render it ridiculous, and to relegate it to the museum of\ncomic virtues. However, notwithstanding the many years I have lived,\nI still have the ingenuous good nature to believe this phrase when\nit comes warmly and spontaneously from two loving hearts, and when\nthose two hearts live in two organisms superior in intelligence and\nsentiment it may yet be true; the cottage may soon become a house,\nperhaps even a palace.\n\nBut how many such are there?\n\nThe rest no longer say, _A cottage and your heart_; but, _A palace\neven without your heart. A hundred thousand francs income, with or\nwithout the heart._\n\nIn the first pages of this book we have seen how and why the economic\nconsideration dominates marriage in civilised society with all the\nrigour of a tyrant, how it commands everything, and is the \u201cto be or\nnot to be\u201d of a family.\n\n\u2042\n\nAs regards the balance of fortune, the ideal in marriage would be that\nboth husband and wife should be equally rich, or both have moderate\nmeans. It is not necessary that there should be absolute equality, but\nit ought to approach it. In these fortunate cases the equality of the\nincome increases the dignity of the family to a fellowship, and is\nnecessarily accompanied by many other harmonies of habits, tastes, and\nneeds.\n\nAn _hyper-ideal_ of perfection would be this, that although the amount\nof these incomes may be the same, the separate units should be of a\ndifferent nature. Thus if the husband be a rich land owner the wife\nshould hold house property; and if she has a large share of money\nin the funds the other should own lands or houses. In this way even\nthe most unexpected political or meteoric disturbances would never\nstrand the family. In many cases a good profession in the hands of\nthe husband is equivalent to a rich dowry in the wife; but even here\none must remember that life is uncertain, death certain. And, in\ntruth, where the income proceeds entirely from the work of the father\nof the family this very fact is often a cause of ruin to the family\nwell-being. They have no land, houses, nor money in the funds; a\nlucrative employment gives them riches, and parents and children live\nupon them without putting a penny aside. Then a railway accident or\nsome illness unexpectedly kills the father, and from a gay, rich life\nthey are reduced to the most squalid misery.\n\n_Empleomania_ is a Spanish word, and it sprung up in Spain as if in\nits native soil, but if we have not registered it in our classical\ndictionaries we have the equivalent in the speech of the common\npeople. And above all we unfortunately have the thing it represents;\nand it is one of the most exact measures of our inertia of intellect\nand will. In the middle class, and especially in its lower ranks, the\ndaily dream of the good mother of a family is to give her daughter\nto a _government official_, and it is the dream of a thousand small\nmen, young, short-sighted fellows of slight phrenic development, to\nhave some _official situation_, no matter what, so that in the morning\nthey are not obliged to think how they can pass the day or to make\nany itinerary, but just go to the office at fixed hours, and at fixed\nhours return home. To do what others desire them to do, without the\ntrouble of thinking themselves, and to muse on the sweets of the\nSunday rest for six days in advance; for eleven months to feel the\ndelights of the twelfth, that of the vacation, and to be able to\nthink that every month of the year has a certain day which bears the\nnumber 27: a blessed day on which, whether it rains or pours, whether\nLiberals or Conservatives are in power, whether Crispi or Rudini is\nruling, the paymaster is ready and they receive their salary\u2014ah! these\nare serene and tranquil pleasures which make mothers weep for joy,\nwives leap for pleasure, and the hearts dance in nine-tenths of those\nItalian bipeds who love the peace and security of the morrow ... and\nthe 27th of the month.\n\n\u2042\n\nIf there be an inequality in the riches of two married people it is a\nhundred times better that it should be in favour of the husband.\n\nA woman is never humiliated when she is poor and marries a rich man,\nor when, with moderate means, she marries a millionaire. However much\nshe may be oppressed by social laws, however often she be placed below\nman in position, she brings him so many treasures with her beauty,\nyouth, grace, and all the prizes of her womanhood that they weigh in\nequal value to gold, millions, and coats of arms rich with a hundred\nemblazonings.\n\nThere is perhaps another less noble, but more human, reason, which\nexplains the inequality of our judgment on the subject of matrimony\nbetween persons with different amounts of income.\n\nIt is precisely because the woman is set a peg below us by law and\ncustom that she can accept riches from us without any feeling of\nshame; besides, it is very difficult, if not often impossible, for\nher to gain sufficient by hand or brain work to maintain the family.\nEverything, then, conspires to enable her to give her hand to a rich\nman without selling or prostituting herself.\n\nWhen instead of this it is the man who accepts the riches from the\nwoman, without balancing them by great genius or by a very high social\nposition, he always renounces that manly dignity which ought to be\nhis nobility; he stands degraded before his wife, lowered, and at the\nleast collision with vanity or passion he may be struck full in the\nface by an insult which ought to sink into his very heart.\n\nI know several cases in which a very rich woman fell desperately\nin love with a handsome, cultivated, but poor young man, and he to\nsave his own dignity fled from her love. And the lady followed and\nconquered him, trusting courageously to the proverb, _Ce que femme\nveut, Dieu le veut!_\n\nThey were married, and he loved her, working constantly with his pen,\nbrush, or chisel, having sworn to himself and to her that he would\nonly live by his work. Noble and touching struggles for personal\ndignity, of love and pride, which one but seldom sees, but which\nconsole our sight, daily saddened by so many simonies of luxuries, so\nmany pretences of heroism, so many individual, social, and political\nlies, which darken the air so heavily that it is difficult for the\nsun to penetrate the cloud.\n\nWhoever makes a business of marriage will laugh cordially at me, and\nat my sentimental fantasies.\n\nLet him laugh! I do not pretend to teach him how to make marriage a\nparadise on earth. He will continue to seek a golden dowry, and if he\nhas a great coat of arms and an empty purse he will put the first up\nat auction in order to fill the second; and if the game should succeed\nhe will carry his wife\u2019s money to the gaming table, the turf, or to\nthe cabinet of the cocotte, and feel himself happy to have gained in\none day that which others cannot obtain with all the hard work of a\nlaborious and pure life.\n\nLying on a Turkish divan, smoking a perfumed Havana, he will raise to\nhimself a monument of admiration and acknowledgment amidst the blue\nfumes of his cigar.\n\nAnd is he happy? Happy, perhaps, but never enviable; for I know no\ntrue and durable happiness which degrades dignity, which hides itself\nin the depths of the soul, which can silence itself with the gag of\nsophism and the accommodation of conscience, but that, like a steel\nspring, it will burst and spring from its bonds the more unexpectedly\nthe greater the repression. A man who in the inexorable soliloquies\nof his own conscience has something on which he dare not think, or\nhas a room in his house which he can never visit without a shudder or\nremorse, is never happy.\n\nAnd even if the long training in cynicism succeeds in silencing the\ncry of repressed dignity, there will come a day of domestic discord,\nof duels fought between husband and wife, with the weapon of bitter\nsmiles, cruel compliments, and insinuations full of perfidy and venom,\na day when the wife, striking her fan on the arm-chair with little\nconvulsive blows, will cry: _But in short, my good fellow, I keep\nyou_.... If that man, in such a moment does not redden to the roots\nof his hair, if at that moment his saliva is not changed to gall, nor\nforms a lump in his throat, if he does not feel his very heart and\nsource of life poisoned, that man is not a man, but an unclean animal\nwho has sold his manhood for a handful of gold; he is a most abject\nbeing, a hundred times more despicable than the poor prostitute who\nsells her body to gain her daily bread.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE INCIDENTS AND ACCIDENTS OF MARRIAGE.\n\n\nBut even if you have chosen the best of women for your companion,\nwhether it be due to your merit or your good fortune, the great\nproblem of happiness is not yet solved, for there are so many\nincidents and accidents which disturb it when least we expect them.\n\nYour wife is never a meteorite fallen from the sky, but a fruit still\nattached to the branch, and this branch is taken from a trunk, which\nis the family to which she belongs. When you marry her you must\ninevitably marry her relations also; you must enter a _clan_ which may\nbe a garden of roses, but may be also a wasp\u2019s nest\u2014nay, even a nest\nof vipers.\n\nDo not allow yourself any illusions, believing that when once you\nare legitimate master of your companion you will be able to isolate\nyourself in the nest of your domestic felicity, chasing away wasps\nand crushing the vipers, if there should be any. I will suppose that\nthe woman loves you much, and adores you above all creatures in the\nworld, but the _clan_ from which she has been taken will complain of\nyou, protest and conspire against you. Her parents have ceded the\ngovernment of one of their provinces to you, but still hold the\n_protectorate_ and place a _resident_ near, and they reserve the right\nof intervention in many, unfortunately in too many, cases.\n\nThe idea of a wife, then, would be that she should be an orphan with\nonly the most distant relations or guardians, who are happy to have\nher well married. But here again there are new complications. To be an\norphan at an early age means, since the parents died young, to belong\nto an unhealthy stock. The decadence of many English families is due\nto this very fact. The younger sons of the nobility, who bear a noble\nname, but have an empty purse, seek to equalize blazonry and finance\nby marrying orphans, or only daughters, and thus they bring into the\nnew family the risk of an infirm state of health and sterility.\n\nIt is only too true that all the gravest problems of life are so\nframed that when you have succeeded with patience and labour in\nuntying one knot, others form under your fingers.\n\nThe wife, however, might be an orphan from other causes, independent\nof the health of the parents, and that would be the highest ideal\u2014for\nexample, a girl who had escaped from a fire, or a railway accident, in\nwhich both parents (alike robust) were killed. I am supposing things\nincredible, or at least improbable; I make cruel conjectures, but what\ncan I do? A scolding, wicked, or jealous mother-in-law is worse than\na fire and railway disaster together.\n\nThose good, courteous, intelligent mothers-in-law need not alarm\nthemselves\u2014those who become a second mother to their sons-in-law,\nwho double the delights of the dual life, who bring you the valuable\nblessing of experience and disinterested affection, and who act in the\ndomestic storm as conciliatory judges. Hosanna and everlasting glory\nto such beings, sent by Providence to double your happiness.\n\nFor I only speak of others who, without being bad, are women, or\nrather men, with all the congenital defects of the race of Adam.\n\nThe best of mothers-in-law always sees in you an intruder, a rival,\na man who has robbed her of her daughter, and since she is good she\nwill not worry you; but she will make scenes of jealousy; she will not\nplot against you with your wife, but will swallow so much bitterness\nday by day in the secret silence of her house as to enlarge her liver,\nso that some day or other her moral jaundice will be scattered through\nthe atmosphere of your home, and you too will feel the bitterness.\n\nI understand and am indulgent. That bitterness is distilled from\nthe deepest and most delicate regions of the heart. To have loved a\ndaughter for twenty or thirty years, to have brought her into the\nworld with pain, to have suckled her with spasms, to have educated\nher with a wise love, after having breathed the same air, eaten at the\nsame table, shared bread and tears; and then for the first comer, just\nbecause he wears trousers and has an impudent moustache, to rob her\nof all that treasure with an arrogance as if he claimed and took his\nown\u2014that is hard. And as if that were not enough, the daughter, the\nangel of her domestic temple, runs after the trousers and moustaches,\nand goes away, abandoning her mother\u2019s and her own house, as if she\nwere leaving a room at an hotel in which she had passed the night.\n\nLet us be just! Who will dare to throw the first stone at that poor\nwoman, the pitiable mother? Who would dare ill treat her if she\nasked as a charity the favour that her daughter\u2019s new home should\nbe near hers, if she implored you to allow her to visit her often?\nMan is egotistic and feels paternity less than woman, but even if\nonly in a slight degree he ought to understand the hidden hell of a\nmother-in-law who has to watch her daughter leave her own nest.\n\nThe marriage of a loved daughter is an event expected and desired, but\nit is like a birth, a blessing accompanied by tremendous pain. Elect\nnatures feel the pain, but do not show it, lest they should give pain\nto others, and never convert it into hate.\n\nOthers, on the contrary, transform every drop of bitterness which they\nswallow into a feeling of vengeance, which they ruminate on for some\ntime and hatch with cruel patience, to launch it against you when\nleast you expect it.\n\nI may suppose you to be patient and good, to be an optimist in your\nphilosophy; you will be deaf to the most mellifluous insinuations, you\nwill say _Thank you_ when your foot is trodden on, and _Thank you_ for\nthe rhubarb lozenge which will be offered you\u2014in short, you will take\nthe points from all the darts launched against you; but there will\ncome a day in which patience, goodness, philosophy, will be scattered\nto the wind, and you, with so much repressed wrath, will burst out all\nat once, and placing yourself before your wife, will say:\n\n\u201cThere must be an end to all this; it must be either I or her!\u201d\n\nThe proverbs of all European languages, the satires of the poets,\nthe wit of dramatists, have always agreed in compassionating the\nsons-in-law, and hurling darts against the mothers-in-law. This\nexperience of many centuries has taught us that a good mother-in-law\nis very rare, and that in marriage she is an element most pregnant\nwith danger, most fruitful in disaster.\n\nFrom all this we ought to learn two things:\n\n1st. Before taking a wife to study the character of the future\nmother-in-law well, and to try and discover whether we shall find in\nher an angel or a harpy, an ally or an enemy.\n\n2d. According to the result of our psychological inquiry we ought to\ndeclare most decidedly that we will not live with the family of the\nwife, nor take her mother into our house. If the chosen one of our\nheart really loves us she will consider this decision of ours quite\njust, and will help us to gain the victory if a battle there must be.\n\nIn your own case do not pass it over, do not cede a hand\u2019s breadth\nof land; keep firm in your intention, being quite convinced that by\nso doing you will make your own happiness, that of your wife, and\nof the new family. Between mother-in-law and son-in-law there ought\nto be affection and respect; a current of benevolent, delicate, and\ngentle sentiment ought to pass between them, but at a distance, a most\nrespectful distance; so that no sparks, shocks, much less lightning\nflashes, may appear. Affection, not intimacy; respect, not subjection.\n\n\u2042\n\nBut the complications do not finish with the problem of the\nmother-in-law. There is the other problem which arises when the\ncandidate for marriage has lost his first wife, or the woman her\nfirst husband, or both of them their first partners, with or without\nchildren on one side or on both sides.\n\nThe possible combinations are these:\n\n                    { without children.\n  Widow and widower {\n                    {               { of the man.\n                    { with children { of the woman.\n                                    { of both.\n\n  Widower           { without children.\n                    { with children.\n\n  Widow             { without children.\n                    { with children.\n\nThese various combinations are so many algebraical formul\u00e6 in which\none may find snares, dangers to happiness, and rancour without end.\n\nIf you are a widower and you marry a widow, and neither of you have\nchildren, no danger hangs over you. Liberty on both sides, no right\nnor pretext for intervention; marriage presents itself almost in the\nguise of an union between two young people.\n\nYou may indeed incur the danger of your wife making comparisons, and\nthese not to your advantage. An old proverb says, _Comparisons are\nodious_, but I should like to make a correction and add that for him\nto whom they are unfavourable they are odious, but flattering to him\nwho gains by them. Perhaps you may excel your predecessor, and your\ncompanion will be happy to find it so.\n\nIn any case, if you have your weak side inquire about the public and\nprivate virtues of the first husband, and put the results into the\nbalance which must weigh the pros and cons of the marriage.\n\nA widow and a widower may both have children, or one only may have\nthem. The dangers in these cases are very different.\n\nIt is better for the wife to have them, for if the husband really\nloves her he will also love her children; and besides, being a man, he\nis less at home, and paternity is always an episode in his life and\nnot the whole life, as maternity is with the woman. Then if the man\nhas the good fortune not to have children he will often end by loving\nhis wife\u2019s as much as though they were his own.\n\nIn the case of there being children on both sides the balance may\nprove of advantage, because it is equal in weight and measure, and the\ntwo married people have cause to reproach themselves and to suffer for\nthe same things.\n\nThe worst case is that of a widower with children to whose number the\nnew wife adds; he must be an angel, his wife and children angels also,\nif no civil war breaks out in his house. Think of it well, think a\nhundred times. Do not complicate the marriage, already fraught with\nso many dangers, by imprudence and temerity.\n\nIn marriages between a widow and a widower the greatest danger arises\nfrom the children, who fear or see their future threatened, and who\nin their love for their lost parent believe the new marriage to be an\noutrage to the memory of the dear one.\n\nIt is in these cases that we see all that a man has of venom and\nbaseness come up and soil and cover everything with defilement and\npoison; all the brutal possibilities of human egotism covered, it may\nbe, with varnish but still the skeleton underlying every thought and\nfeeling.\n\n\u2042\n\nOnly one of the engaged persons may be widow or widower, and it is\ngreatly to the honour of women that more men marry a second time than\nwomen. Man often finds more happiness in marriage than she does, while\nshe is more faithful to the memory of the departed, and thinks more of\nher children than herself.\n\nHow many women I have known who, being left widows quite young,\nhave sacrificed themselves, together with the need of loving and\nbeing loved, to their children, often to one alone; proud of their\nsacrifice, unconquerable against all temptations and against all the\npower of the most legitimate passions.\n\nDo children know how to value this heroism hidden in the bosom of so\nmany families? Do they understand that there is more courage required\nin this struggle of months and years than one day\u2019s assault of a\nbattery in battle?\n\nVery rarely do they know it, for even the best of children do not\nreturn a hundredth part of the love they have received from their\nparents, and especially from their mother.\n\n\u2042\n\nIs happiness more easily to be found in the union of a widower and a\nyoung woman, or in that of a widow and a celibate?\n\nThe answer is difficult, for the problem is too vague, and individual\nqualities weigh too heavily in the balance, gradually modifying the\nsurroundings, the affections now warding off dangers, now increasing\nthem infinitely.\n\nIf other conditions be favourable the widow is generally an excellent\nwife for many reasons: She has lost many illusions, but has learned\nto know and excuse the egotism of man. Sometimes she will have\nbeen obliged to beg her first husband\u2019s pardon for some accession\nof jealousy or caprice; and as a woman always occupies herself in\neverything more with other people\u2019s happiness than her own, she wishes\nto give her second husband perfect bliss, and often and willingly\nsucceeds. If she cannot offer her companion the virginal flower (which\nafter all is more a myth than a real jewel) she can give him all the\ntreasures of amorous experience, that is often worth more than a\nhundred virginities.\n\nOn the other hand the widower who marries a young woman has the great\nadvantage of her not being able to make any odious comparisons, and he\nalso brings precious gems to the new home which an unmarried man does\nnot know or possess. He has learned to know all the little weaknesses\nand great virtues of woman, he has learned to become less egotistical,\nto think of others more than himself, and as separate from himself,\nand he generally is an excellent husband.\n\n\u2042\n\nIn all intricate problems, in all the fatal confusions which present\nthemselves in the marriage between widows and widowers, between\nwidows, widowers, and celibates, the anchor of safety which saves\nfrom shipwreck is always the heart. When there is great love, and it\nis shared by two, who join hands forever, every difficulty is cleared\naway, and concord ends by hoisting its banner over the new house. The\nmost ferocious hatred is conquered by generosity, by the indulgence of\none who loves much, and after a short battle of the opposing forces\nlove scatters its flowers and blessing over the new nest. Love is the\nstrength of strengths, which surpasses all others, and in this case\nit is omnipotent, so that when it exists in all its proper energy on\none side only, it absorbs all the minor energies, and on the fields\nthreatened with hail and lightning the sun shines through the last\ndrops of the beneficent rain, and the rainbow hangs its multicoloured\nbridge in the sky, drawing enemies nearer and making them allies.\n\n\u2042\n\nOf all the accidents which we may meet on the threshold of matrimony\none of the most common is the stoppage of the way by someone who\nexclaims: \u201cHalt! there is no passage here.\u201d\n\nYou are a minor, or your loved one is, or the person who has the right\nto speak does not find your choice to his taste, and shuts the door\nof the temple you wish to enter in your face, securing it with many\nchains. Civil war is declared, and it is to be seen who _can_ and\n_ought_ to gain the victory.\n\nThis _can_ and _ought_ are not synonymous terms, because the parents\non one side or the other _can_ withhold their consent to your union,\nbut many times they are in the wrong, and ought not to refuse to\nsanction the marriage.\n\nAs regards two lovers, if their love is sincere, if in their secret\nand confidential dialogues they have sworn the everlasting _yes_\nto each other, if they have nearly conjugated half of the verb to\nlove, they believe that they have every right in the world to become\nhusband and wife; and when they have tried all fair means to bend\nthe will of the tyrant or tyrants they run away together, secretly,\nhoping that once the deed is done it will sooner or later receive the\nconsent of those opposing it. Sometimes, however, the wandering sheep\nare discovered before the deed is consummated, and are re-conducted\nwith many reproaches to their respective folds. In more serious cases\nspectres of single or double suicide, asphyxiation, poison, or the\nrevolver may appear.\n\nShould anyone find himself in such case meditating death, and have\ntime to cast a look on these pages, let him leave the charcoal,\nthe poison of the druggist, and the revolver of the armourer. Life\nis a good and beautiful thing that must be guarded with love,\ncaressed with tenderness, and if love ought to be the bridegroom of\nthe marriage, reason and good sense ought always to be present as\nwitnesses.\n\nIf with a stroke of a magic wand one could raise all those who have\ncommitted self-destruction to life again, after having dressed their\nwounds, they would take up life gaily, and even another love affair.\n\nParents always have the duty and the right of speaking, protesting,\nand counselling, nay, even of interposing a _veto_, if they see their\nchildren\u2019s future endangered when they have chosen love as arbitrator,\nbut have forgotten to call good sense and reason as witnesses.\n\nIf you _will_ marry an abject creature who will dishonour your name\nand the name of the family to which you belong, and of whom after\na few months of warm passion you yourself will be ashamed; if you\n_will_ marry a woman suffering from tuberculous disease, or one of\na consumptive family, or where madness is present; if you _will_\nincrease the sad patrimony of proletaries and the unemployed, having\nneither present nor future resources; if in one way or another you\nthrow yourself with closed eyes head foremost into a bottomless abyss\nonly to satisfy carnal excitement which you may call passion, but\nwhich is only the desire of the flesh\u2014father and mother have full\nright to oppose your ruin with all possible means; and even if they\nshould not succeed they will have done their duty. If the means they\ntake succeed you will later on thank them with a warm gratitude.\n\nIn all these cases I allow you to combat, to weep, even tear out some\nof your hair; but the tears over, the muscles tired, gather up the\nhair you have torn out and present it to your fair one, telling her to\nkeep it until your return as a pledge of your _eternal faith_; for you\nought to leave, and that instantly, even on foot, even asking money of\nthe tyrannical parents or of some compassionate friend. Travel in far\ncountries, and who knows if on your return you will not find a neat\nlittle packet tied with rose-coloured ribbon\u2014your letters, your hair,\nand perhaps the announcement of the marriage of your old _fianc\u00e9e_.\n\nIf your love, instead, has known how to resist the long absence, if it\nhas strengthened and grown, who knows if the hard parents will not be\nmoved to pity and try to make an adjustment, provided, however, that\nthere be no consumption, madness, or other calamities to dissuade you\nfrom marriage in an absolute and decided way. Better that you should\ndie than sow death broadcast in future generations.\n\n\u2042\n\nThere are some cases, however, in which the wrong is not yours, but is\ntheirs who unreasonably and tyrannically oppose your happiness from\nprejudices of rank, avidity of money, or some caprice or other. If you\nare a count or marquis and love a girl of good family without a coat\nof arms, or if you are very rich and wish to marry an educated girl\nof angelic character, but who is not rich\u2014in these and similar cases\nseek the help of your mother, who is nearly always more compassionate\nthan your father, or ask counsel and help from some intimate friend,\nfrom one of the few who knows your heart like a book, and has never\nflattered you.\n\nIn these domestic contests it is very rare for right and reason to be\non one side only; there is a little on this side and a little on that;\nyour hands are too unsteady to hold the balance of justice steadily,\nand weigh with precision the _pro_ and the _con_. Your mother,\ninstead, who loves you as no one else can (not even your lover), and\nyour friend who knows you well, see things from a dispassionate and\ncalm point of view, and will judge justly whether you are right or\nwrong; and if you are neither mad nor a fool you will end by believing\nthose who love you and desire your good; and, as the case may be,\nstand firm and you will win. The ancient Greek appealed against\nPhilip, the modern miller appeals against Berlin, and both were right\nagainst Philip and against Frederick the Great. Your mother and friend\nwill appeal to you not to fast entirely from love, but to be a little\nless hungry, and who knows but that they will end in being right\nagainst that king of kings Love\u2014stronger than the father of Alexander\nthe Great, greater than Frederick the Great.\n\nIf they really love you, and are persons of good sense, they will say\nneither _No!_ nor _Never!_ to you, but will content themselves by\nsaying, Have a little patience; wait.\n\nTime is the chief and capable corrector of the proof sheets of the\nsketches of love, as also the policy of Fabius the temporizer, who\nknew how to gain so many wars by skirmishes and battles.\n\nThe stone of comparison enables us to distinguish gold from ignoble\nmetal; time teaches us to separate with certainty true love from the\ndesire of the flesh, from the fussy exactions of self-love and all\nthat is plated. And perhaps, besides your mother and friend, you will\nlisten to the long experience of him who writes, and will hear his\nvoice, which says to you, cries to you, supplicates you:\n\n_Let time take its course, ever and always._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nHELL.\n\n\nI am sitting in a restaurant in the town of \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014, at the seaside.\nIt is the height of the bathing season, the carnival of salt and\nfresh water, and the whole world is forgetting the labour and\nunpleasantnesses of city life for a few weeks.\n\nI am waiting for my breakfast, seated at a table just outside the\nhouse, under an arbour of vines and convolvulus. The sea breeze\nreaches me, plays with my tablecloth and sports with my hair, uniting\nitself to the perfume of flowers which peep up, red, white, and\nviolet, happy also in the midst of all the sunshine, greenery, and\nfreshness.\n\nNearly all the tables, scattered about under the arbours or in the\nshade of the trees, are surrounded by happy people who have just taken\ntheir baths, fresh, with disordered hair, hungry and merry. Even human\nlife has its good quarters of an hour.\n\nNear me I see a teacher to whom two girls of about ten and twelve\nhave been intrusted, and who, faithful to her trust, is giving them\na noisy lesson in morality and gallantry, whilst she eats and drinks\nas if she were starving. I cannot imagine how she does it, but she\nmanages not to interrupt her educational discourse, whilst she never\nceases to eat and drink. The pupils do not listen to her, but look\nat each other, slyly laughing at the inexhaustible conversation of\ntheir instructress. A little further off there are three young fellows\nwho, having passed their examinations well, have been rewarded by a\nvisit to the seaside. They are laughing, noisy, and giddy with youth,\nthoughtless, envying no living soul. One of them has just finished his\nbreakfast, and in order to pay his bill of one franc fifty centimes\nhe brings out a red banknote of a hundred francs, and offers it to\nthe waiter with great pride, and in such a way that everyone can see\nit. It is the first he has ever had, and already that morning he has\noffered it at the coffeehouse to pay fifteen centimes, and at the\nbaths to pay for his ticket of fifty centimes. No one would change it,\nand even the waiter says he has no change; and the young fellow is\nhappy, for he will be able to display it a fourth, a fifth, and even a\nsixth time.\n\nFacing me a whole family of some seven or eight persons are eating\nmerrily, and the children, in a chromatic scale of bright colours and\ndifferent heights, range from two to fifteen years. Each one is giving\nutterance to its joy, clambering up and down the chairs, playing with\na little dog to which they give the tid-bits on their plates. The\nfather is red, stout, and in his shirt sleeves; he looks smilingly at\nhis blond companion, reading in her smile the reflection of all that\nlisping chatter, laughter, and folly which surround them.\n\nAll these people, differing in age, condition, and intellect, unite in\nthe same merriment, which they seem to have drawn from the sea, the\nfather of planetary life, the dispenser of spirit and energy; and all\nthe while the golden rays of the sun shine through the vine leaves,\nthe ivy, and convolvulus, painting with the shade and penumbra of the\nleaves the tablecloth, the dresses of the women, and the rosy faces of\nthe children, throwing patches, half shades, and glistening spots on\nthe garden sand.\n\nI, too, a solitary observer, enjoyed all the bright sunshine and the\nhappiness of the people, but forgot that I had only looked to the\nright and straight before me; I turned calmly to the left, sure of\nfinding there another scene of joy and brightness.\n\nOn the contrary, the picture was very different.\n\nAt a table just as clean and white as the others, played on\ncapriciously by light and shade, two persons were sitting, a man and a\nwoman.\n\nHe was about thirty, she forty-five. He was handsome, robust, with\nmanly energy; she lame, fat, and hunch-backed. There ought to have\nbeen a neck, but there was none to be seen, for the heavy head\nappeared to have been put on the chest awry; and all the cruel\nartifices resorted to for hiding the hump behind seemed made on\npurpose to produce another in front. Even her features were ugly, and\nthe ill-made hands were laden with rings. Large earrings were in her\nears, and a colossal locket surrounded by diamonds, inclosing the\nman\u2019s portrait, was hanging in front. Husband and wife, no doubt.\n\nShe was eating, but could not have known the flavour of the food, for\nthe mouthful went round and round between her teeth, whilst another\npiece on the fork was waiting in vain for its turn to enter the mouth.\nThat poor deformed being did not cry, that is, no tears fell on her\ncheeks, but she blew her nose every now and then, and the eyes were\nmoist and sad. She placed the fork automatically from time to time\non the plate, with the mouthful still on it, and gazed at the man\nlovingly, tenderly, waiting, imploring for a look.\n\nBut the look never came. With one hand he hastily conveyed the food to\nhis mouth, and with the other held a newspaper, which he was reading\nwith pretended interest, so as not to have the silence interrupted. He\ndid not shed tears nor blow his nose, but he frowned, and he was also\nsuffering one of those intense and hidden agonies to which one does\nnot confess, but which furrow the soul like harrows of steel.\n\nI did not remove my eyes again from that dumb and agonizing scene.\n\nAfter a long interval she said to him, timidly, hesitatingly, almost\nas if committing a crime:\n\n\u201cWill you take anything else?\u201d\n\nHe started as if the voice had struck him like a blow in the face; he\nturned to her and twisted his mouth like one seized with a sudden and\nirresistible disgust.\n\n\u201cNo, I want nothing more.\u201d\n\nThe _No_ was pronounced angrily and with scorn; it was, and must have\nbeen, a blow to her to whom it was addressed. He looked at her a long\ntime, a look full of hatred, remorse, and disgust. It seemed as if he\nwere passing in review all his companion\u2019s ugliness, and as if until\nthat moment he had never seen it so clearly: those wrinkles, that gray\nhair, that hump, the deformed neck, those arms which looked like\nhams in sacks, and then those rings and jewels which seemed to jeer\nat the white, flabby flesh with their brightness. The deformity, the\ngrotesque violation of good taste, suddenly struck that handsome and\nrobust man, for he had sold youth and manhood to an unfortunate woman\nwho had believed it possible to still love and be loved.\n\nThe two had plunged into the waves of the sea a little before; they\nhad drunk of the sun\u2019s rays too, but neither sea nor sun had been able\nto give happiness to these unfortunate creatures who had bartered\ncarnal pleasures for gold, who had changed sacred love to a vile\nprostitution of flesh and banknotes.\n\nShe had already passed the meridian of her second youth; he was still\nyoung.\n\nShe was undressing. He was already in bed, and followed the\nprogressive unclothing of that body with an anxious curiosity, that\nbody once so active, so handsome and fascinating, now all submerged in\nthe high waters of an invading corpulence.\n\nHe wished to hide his head under the counterpane, and did so, but a\nmorbid curiosity made him put out his head again directly, and he\nlooked.\n\nShe had read in her glass only too well the ruin of her form, and had\nalways sought to undress alone; but this time she was obliged to do\nit before his eyes. She ingeniously hid the regions which had most\nsuffered wreck, and with a remnant of coquetry kept uncovered her\nshoulders, the _ultimum moriens_ in the woman\u2019s body; but diffident\nof herself, and fearful of those looks which seemed to pierce her\nthrough, her last garment fell from her hands to her feet, and the\ndisasters of the wreck suddenly appeared, standing out cruelly,\nwithout pity for her or for him.\n\nShe uttered a cry and stooped down to cover herself....\n\nHe, egotistical, pitiless, forgot all the delights that this body once\nso fragrant of youth and beauty had given him, and exclaimed, throwing\nthe words in her face:\n\n\u201cAt a certain age I think a little more modesty is demanded.\u201d\n\nFrom that moment, from that evening, the two were enemies, two galley\nslaves bound by the same chain.\n\n\u2042\n\nShe was reclining, rather than seated, on the sofa, with small and\nlarge cushions, which allowed her to change the frame of which she\nwas the picture. She was smoking a cigarette, and had a French novel\non her knee that could not have interested her very much, for at that\nmoment she yawned. The yawn was cut short, or rather interrupted, by\nthe sudden opening of the sitting-room door; no one ever entered the\nroom in that way but him. This time it was more like him than usual:\nalways a husband, now an angry one.\n\nHe entered with his hat on his head, his stick in his hand, as if he\nwere just going out or had just come in. The latter was the case. On\nreturning from his walk a large envelope had been put into his hand in\nthe anteroom. It contained a dressmaker\u2019s bill, the third or fourth\nhe had received in a few months. The total was very high, higher than\nusual, and he came into the room with the bill in his hand to make a\nscene.\n\n\u201cCome, now, come, now, my lady, when shall we finish with these\naccounts?\u201d\n\nShe made no answer, but continued to smoke, only growing a little red\nin the face.\n\n\u201cIt seems that my lady believes herself to be a millionaire; this is\nthe third bill that I have had to pay in little more than four months.\nBut what game are we playing, my lady?\u201d\n\nAnd _my lady_, throwing the end of her cigarette on a Japanese tray,\nstretched out her voluptuous limbs, and showed, as if by chance, a\nfairy-like foot and a leg for a sculptor. More than once already had\nthe disclosure of such a picture, sacred to love, warded off a heavy\nstorm. Now, however, neither foot nor leg could disarm her husband,\nwho had thrown his stick on a chair, but kept on his hat, to increase\nthe violence of his words and to give authority to his threats. In the\nmeantime he rumpled and then folded the innocent paper with alternate\nconvulsive movements.\n\n\u201cI shall not pay this bill; you must pay it yourself. You have jewels\n(given by me, of course); put them in pawn. You will then learn not to\nplay the princess with other people\u2019s money.\u201d\n\nThe little foot and leg retired under the dress, ashamed of their\ndefeat, and at last the lady opened her mouth too:\n\n\u201cI think you can hardly expect me to cut a sorry figure in society.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what society? Society of Egypt! Many ladies who are more truly\nladies than you don\u2019t spend half what you do. I have inquired and know\nvery well.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, your Fifi told you, your Fifi, for whom you pay much larger\nbills than you do for your wife.\u201d\n\nNever had his wife uttered the name of the stage dancer until that\nmoment, and he had believed her to be quite ignorant of his amours.\nHe reddened up to his hair, frowned, and shook himself as if he had\nbeen stung by a viper, and the conversation became embittered even to\nbrutality.\n\n\u201cAh! jealous, and impertinent too! It seems to me that when one has\nnot brought a halfpenny of dowry there ought to be a little more\nmodesty and economy.\u201d\n\n\u201cGood, very good, sir! I have brought youth and beauty as a dowry,\nand a dowry besides; yes, you insolent man, a good dowry, a large sum\nwhich was lost in the failure of the Bank of Turin. And is that my\nfault? And you, what have you brought me? A bald head, false teeth,\nand a body eaten through with vice\u2014a fine patrimony, truly.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, you had a dowry, had you? I have never seen it; the only treasure\nI have seen is the gold with which your teeth are stopped. Sell that\nand pay the dressmaker\u2019s bill with it.\u201d\n\nThe bill flew in the air and fell at the woman\u2019s feet.\n\nThe husband went out of the room, slamming the door so loudly as to\nmake the little Japanese figures and the other bric-a-brac on the\ntable tremble. And the wife, lighting a fresh cigarette, set to, with\nall the force of her intellect, to invent some revenge worthy of the\ninsult received.\n\nShe was alone in her boudoir, seated before a writing table of ebony\ninlaid with ivory. She wrote rapidly and smiled to herself, as one\nsmiles when one is writing to one beloved, and saying a saucy thing\nflavoured with much tenderness.\n\nNothing was heard in the room but the soft and rhythmical scratching\nof the steel pen on the paper. She was so intent on what she was\nwriting that she had not heard someone raise the _porti\u00e8re_, enter the\nroom, and stand before her.\n\nThat someone was not the person to whom she was writing, for raising\nher graceful head for a moment as if to seek an adjective more merrily\nsaucy to put with the others, she saw her husband, whom she believed\nwas out, standing before her.\n\nShe uttered a startled cry, and unconsciously covered the paper she\nwas writing on with her right hand.\n\n\u201cAh, is it you? How you frightened me!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnother time I will have myself announced.\u201d\n\nThese words were said without anger, and with a serene calmness; but a\ndiabolic irony played round the mouth.\n\nThe smile gradually converted itself to a real laugh, to which the\nnodding head seemed to beat time.\n\n\u201cPerhaps you were writing to Count B. Who can write the better, you or\nhe? His letters are pretty, very pretty! How much passion\u2014no, passion\nis not a fit word, it is too flattering; let us say _sensuality,\nlasciviousness, debauchery_. Which of these words do you find most\nsuitable?\u201d\n\nThe lady had become white as death. The pen fell from her hand and\nmade a large blot on the elegant paper.\n\nBut the husband, continuing to laugh, had approached her, and having\ndrawn a chair to the writing table, stroked her hair lovingly.\n\n\u201cYou were afraid; but of what? You think, perhaps, that I am come to\nmake a scene, or perhaps to kill you, and then myself after. No, no;\nI only like double suicides on the stage or in novels, provided the\nauthor of the book or the drama has talent. But here, why stain this\nbeautiful Persian carpet with your blood, why scatter mine over the\nelegant paper you were covering with your words of love? It would\nreally be a pity, a crime, and above all a folly. I am come to make a\ncompact,\u201d and he laid a long kiss on the little fair curls at her neck.\n\nIt seemed to the lady as if that kiss burnt her like a red-hot iron.\n\nShe withdrew her head and gazed at her husband with glassy eyes,\npetrified with astonishment.\n\nNo, he had not really the look of an assassin. He was calm, cheerful,\nlike a good-tempered fellow who was playing an innocent joke, a very\ninnocent one.\n\n\u201cGive me a cigarette. The air is heavy with the odour of your\ncigarettes! They must be very good ones. Probably Count B. brought\nthem for you from Constantinople?\u201d He did not wait for her to give it\nto him, but took one himself from a bronze bowl and lighted it. \u201cI\ntold you, then, that I was come to make a compact with you, a compact\nof purchase and sale, in which we shall both gain something. Look!\u201d\n\nAnd here the husband took out of the pocket of his greatcoat a\nperfumed packet of letters tied with a golden cord.\n\n\u201cI have a treasure here! the entire and complete collection of all the\nletters the count has written you. Not one is missing! The lady\u2019s maid\nyou dismissed last week made me a present of them, gave them to me for\nnothing. There are a hundred and thirty, written in three months! How\nmuch will you give me for this treasure?\u201d\n\nThe lady, being suddenly reassured that her husband\u2019s intentions were\nnot homicidal, looked at him with a gaze full of contempt and cruelty.\nShe no longer felt fear or remorse. She could have wished at that\nmoment that the letters might have been not from one lover only, but\nfrom ten, a hundred, and that each one could strike him and spit in\nhis face. She began to laugh too.\n\n\u201cBravo! capital! you are a man of spirit. Give me a kiss!\u201d\n\nAnd the kiss was given, a faithful copy of the one that Judas gave\nChrist nearly twenty centuries ago.\n\n\u201cI will give you a thousand francs!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! oh! oh!\u201d\n\nAnd here followed a long and loud laugh.\n\n\u201cA thousand francs! a thousand francs! What are you thinking of? I\nwant ten thousand francs, not a penny more or less. If not, I will\ngive them to your father for nothing, only reserving two or three of\nthe most lascivious to publish in the papers. Do you agree?\u201d\n\n\u201cGive them to him if you will. I shall say that you wrote them, that\nthey are false. My father esteems me highly.\u201d\n\n\u201cUm! Your father is not a fool, and the writing of the count is not\nforged. I want ten thousand francs!\u201d\n\n\u201cI will give you five.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; it is too little. I must pay Nina\u2019s milliner\u2019s bill, and I want\nto go to Paris.\u201d\n\n\u201cI will give you six.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, ten. Not a penny more or less.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well; I will give you ten thousand francs. Give me the letters.\nSwear that they are all here!\u201d\n\n\u201cLook at the dates. They are really all here. They are numbered too by\nthe count, with red ink, perhaps with his blood.\u201d\n\nAnd here there was a loud laugh.\n\n\u201cWhen you bring me the ten thousand francs I will give you the\nletters, not before.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nThe compact was made, the letters were returned, the sum was paid.\n\nThe husband paid Nina\u2019s milliner\u2019s bill, and has gone to Paris.\nIndeed, he has already returned and is still living in the house of\nhis wife, with whom he hopes soon to be able to negotiate a new ransom.\n\nAnd she?\n\nShe has a new lover to whom she never writes and from whom she will\nnot receive any letters. When he complains of this strange proceeding\nshe throws her arms round his neck and, kissing him, says:\n\n\u201cIs it not better, dear, to have a kiss the more and a letter the\nless?\u201d\n\nAnd the husband has waited a long time in vain, hoping to discover a\nnew packet of perfumed letters, tied with a golden cord, all marked in\nprogressive numbers, written with red ink, perhaps with blood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nPURGATORY.\n\n\nBut few marriages are a hell, and fewer still enjoy the highest\nbeatitudes of heaven; the most stand halfway between the two\u2014that\nis, in purgatory. There they live without redemption, which means\nwithout any hope of mounting to heaven; but neither have they any fear\nof being hurled down among the fallen angels. After a more or less\nlengthy honeymoon they descend gradually to earth, now walking amongst\nnettles and thorns, now amongst the flowering beds of the garden, to\nremain there till death.\n\nTo describe all the forms and accidents of this conjugal purgatory\nwould be to exhaust the human universe. It is enough for me to present\nsome scenes taken from life, so that you can judge of the rest from\nthese examples.\n\n\u2042\n\nIt is eight o\u2019clock in the morning; he has been awake for some time;\nshe is sleeping soundly and sweetly.\n\nHe had been quiet and silent for more than an hour, reading the paper,\nsmoking a cigarette, looking at his wife with the fond hope that she\nmay wake up of herself, but in vain.\n\nThen he coughed several times, used his handkerchief without needing\nit, shook the bed, but in vain.\n\nThe waiting had become impatience; impatience had changed to a\ntroublesome, insupportable agitation.\n\nThen he gave her a sweet, light little kiss on her lips. She woke with\na start and stared at him\u2014he who had expected a smile or an answer on\na par with the question.\n\n\u201cHow you frightened me! Why did you wake me so suddenly?\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought my kiss would have pleased you, and hoped to wake you\ngradually without giving you a shock.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you know\u2014you know very well that for some time past waking me in\nthat way has hurt me. It gives me palpitation of the heart, and then\nI feel ill all day.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have been awake since six o\u2019clock, and have had the patience to\nwait two hours for you to wake; you have slept nine hours.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd if I wish to sleep ten what have you to say against it? Do you\nnot remember that I worked like a dog yesterday, that I had to attend\nto the house linen, put the drawing room in order, and then went round\nto all the shops to find a good flannel for your vests? You ruin my\nhealth, and will give me disease of the heart by your nasty habit of\nwaking me up so suddenly.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how ought I to wake you? Teach me.\u201d\n\n\u201cIf I could teach you to have a little more consideration, if I could\ncure you of your egotism, I would willingly do so; you only think of\nyourself.\u201d\n\nThe tone of the conversation on her part, at first slightly irritated,\nhad become angry, rancorous, and full of suppressed bitterness.\n\nHe felt it, but still hoped for a reconciliation.\n\nHe tried to feel her heart.\n\n\u201cLet me see if you really have palpitation of the heart.\u201d\n\nShe turned her back on him angrily.\n\n\u201cLet me alone; after having done me harm you now want to joke. I tell\nyou you will finish by killing me!\u201d\n\nHe turned away too, muttering under his breath and thinking sad\nthoughts of that chemical combination called marriage.\n\n\u2042\n\n\u201cListen, dear; I should like to dine an hour earlier to-day.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I eat nothing at breakfast and have a poet\u2019s hunger.\u201d\n\n\u201cI, on the contrary, have none at all. I eat too much.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut besides my appetite, I have another reason for wishing to dine\nearlier. Do you know, I have promised my oldest and best friend,\nGiovanni, to meet him at the station on his way to Rome?\u201d\n\n\u201cWho knows that it is not a lady instead?\u201d\n\n\u201cCome with me to the station and convince yourself.\u201d\n\n\u201cHeaven defend me! I am not jealous.\u201d\n\n\u201cA little! You are jealous six days in the week and seven times every\nday. You are always so and always in the wrong.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I tell you I believe you; I was only joking.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery well, then, we will dine at five instead of six.\u201d\n\n\u201cImpossible! Annina has brought home such a tough fowl that it will\nrequire all the cooking in the world to have it ready by seven.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I can do without the fowl!\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there is nothing else! Go another time to meet Giovanni\u2014when he\nreturns from Rome, for instance.\u201d\n\n\u201cHe will not be returning by the same route. I know he has to go back\nby Civita Vecchia and Genoa.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, anyhow, we cannot dine at five!\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! it is enough that I should ask a thing for you to find a thousand\nand one difficulties to prevent you doing what I want. It has been so\never since we were married, and will be to the end.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you will always be that obstinate and infallible man who wishes\nto command in housekeeping where the woman ought to be mistress.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on, go on! Just because one wants dinner at five instead of at six\nyou have your usual reproaches for me. I know them by heart already.\u201d\n\n\u201cYet it does not appear so, for you are incorrigible and will have\nwhat you want at any cost, even if your wife\u2019s or children\u2019s health\nhas to suffer, or even if the sky fall.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, yes, you are right; a tough fowl will kill you. For Heaven\u2019s\nsake do not let us have such pettiness.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut it is you who are petty, thanks for the compliment; if I am petty\nyou are egotistical, and ought not to have married.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you ought not to have had a husband, you chatterer, you\nintolerable scold!\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on. Haven\u2019t you some more gentle, nice adjectives; they are so\nwell suited to your delicate mouth?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, I have a good many left; you are foolish and have no common\nsense; you make a rope out of a thread of silk, and in everything you\nfind a pretext to make scenes and torment me, and scatter gall on all\nyou touch. Yes, you must be suffering from the liver. Call in the\ndoctor, you must have the jaundice.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is you who have the jaundice, and to show you that you are the\nmost petty of the two I will be silent and go.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I will go too, and will dine neither at five nor six, but at\nthe hotel. At least I shall not hear your ugly and impertinent voice\nthere, your chatter without sense, and I shall have an hour\u2019s rest\nfrom the infinite sweetnesses you scatter over the time when we are\nobliged to be together.\u201d\n\nHe is director of some large works. He is early at his desk, for it\nis Saturday and he must balance the accounts of the week and pay the\nwork people. He is in an exceedingly bad temper, for he has discovered\nthat the cashier is not honest, that his chief superintendent is\nignorant, and that a good many customers have sent in complaints of\nthe bad quality of the goods despatched from the factory. He has both\narms on the writing table, his head is between his hands, and he looks\nmechanically at a row of figures before him without reading them.\n\nShe, on the contrary, is in the best of tempers, for she feels well,\nand when she was dressing her hair the glass told her how handsome she\nwas, very handsome; and then her little boy on waking a little before\nhad sat up in his cradle and, smiling, had said _Mamma_ for the first\ntime.\n\nShe caught him up in delight in his little white night-dress, just\nas he was, and ran to her husband\u2019s office, opened the door without\nknocking or waiting to know if anyone was there, and rushed in hastily\nand happily.\n\nHe had hardly time to raise his eyes before she was at the writing\ntable, and had placed the child on a bundle of papers, and said in an\nagitated voice:\n\n\u201cGive papa a kiss.\u201d\n\nPapa loved the little fellow very much and the mother exceedingly; but\nat that moment he hated all and everything, even himself. What would\nhe have given at that moment not to be unkind; what would he have done\nnot to have had his wife and child there to make him hurt them!\n\nHow many fierce, dumb, and invisible struggles are carried on in a\nman\u2019s brain within a few seconds.\n\nHe said nothing, but put his mouth quickly to the child\u2019s.\n\n\u201cYes, yes; bravo; give me a kiss and then go away directly, for I am\nbusy\u2014I have a devil in every hair and a thousand anxieties in my mind\n... yes ... yes, so ... good-by, good-by.\u201d\n\nAnd he almost pushed away mother and child with his two nervous,\nangry, almost threatening hands. The poor mother had not expected such\na reception, and could not reconcile herself to it.\n\n\u201cDo you know that Carlino has just said _Mamma_ for the first time,\nreally, just now when he woke?\u201d\n\nThe father was silent and fretted, angry with himself because he could\nnot and did not know how to call up a single affectionate word to\nhis lips or a sole caress to his hands; all was dark before him, and\neverything so bitter that absinthe would have seemed honey to him.\n\nAnd to be obliged to be so hard with that touching picture before him!\nOh, why had that woman come at such a moment? Why had he not locked\nhimself in his office?\n\nThe mother could not give in. She drew her lips to his scowling\nforehead, but he did not draw down those lips to his; he simply\ntouched her cheek coldly. That kiss was an insult; he was ice; he was\nbrutal.\n\nShe felt a lump in her throat, which broke into a sob.\n\n\u201cYes, yes, let us go away. We will not come again to trouble you.\u201d\n\nHe got up hurriedly and went to the window, but did not open it. He\nput his hands through his hair and exclaimed aloud:\n\n\u201cBless the women! they never understand anything; they come into the\noffice, interrupt one\u2019s work, and oblige one to be harsh to those one\nloves best. And yet they pretend to be our equals.\u201d\n\nHe continued his panegyric on women alone, for mother and child had\ndisappeared, both crying, the mother mortally offended by the double\nblow\u2014the one to the wife\u2019s heart, the other to the mother\u2019s. The child\nscreamed, frightened at the cruel scene which he appeared to feel, if\nhe did not understand.\n\nSobs and cries lasted some time, and were heard through the wall in\nthe office, making a savage harmony with the bursts of impatience of\nthe angry director of the factory.\n\n\u2042\n\n\u201cDo you know, dear, the Marquis of Bellavista came into our box at the\ntheatre yesterday evening?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did he want? I did not know he was in Florence.\u201d\n\n\u201cNeither did I.\u201d\n\n\u201cUm!\u201d\n\n\u201cI thought he was still in Naples; but he told me he was staying a day\nor two in Florence on his way to the races at Milan, and seeing me in\nthe box, he came up to shake hands with me.\u201d\n\n\u201cI hope you were rude to him, so that he will not be tempted to come\nand see you a second time.\u201d\n\n\u201cRude, no! but cold. You can ask your mother, who was present at the\ntime.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t believe that you had not seen him before during the day, when\nyou were out, or perhaps here at home. You tell me now that you have\nseen him at the theatre because a hundred others might tell me, and\nyou wished to forestall them.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut this is a gratuitous insult, unjust, cruel! I do not think I have\never given you reason to doubt my loyalty.\u201d\n\n\u201cI have not the slightest suspicion of any other man who may pay you\nattention, but with the marquis it is quite a different thing. Before\nyou married me he was deeply in love with you, and you with him; and\nthe affair went a good way, for you were engaged to each other. It\nwas only your father who broke off the engagement at the last moment\nbecause he heard the worst accounts of the character of his future\nson-in-law and of his disreputable conduct. First love always leaves\ndeep impressions.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my love, had I really loved the marquis I should not have married\nanyone else, nor should I have believed the accusations they cast at\nhim. I should have waited until I was mistress of myself, and not have\ngiven my hand to another.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd how long was the marquis in the box?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbout an hour.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery good, only an hour! Too short a time for a love appointment, and\ntoo long for a complimentary visit.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut I could not send him away.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen a woman desires it she can always make a man understand that his\nvisit is inopportune, inconvenient, and that he must shorten it if\npossible.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou teach me how I can do so.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd then you chatted over your old love, and the cruel rupture of\nyour separation.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe only spoke of music and theatres.\u201d\n\n\u201cWe may believe that. But I am going out to see if I can discover\nwhether the marquis is still in Florence, and how long he intends to\nstay. And in the meantime, if he is barefaced enough to call here, I\nbeg you will not receive him. This I demand and desire.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo command is necessary; I know my duty.\u201d\n\n\u201cNot always. A visit of an hour in the box of a woman to whom the man\nwas once engaged is an offence to her husband.\u201d\n\nShe, who was completely innocent, felt herself really offended by\nall the suspicions of her husband, and began to beat her foot on the\ncarpet and to torture a volume of Copp\u00e9e lying on the table with a\npaper knife.\n\nFrom anger and from opposition to the unmerited offence she had a firm\nidea that the Marquis of Bellavista would never have been so jealous,\nso foolishly jealous. Libertines know the hearts of women a little\nbetter.\n\nThe husband went out of the house without a farewell word to his wife.\nHe became a spy on the marquis, and followed his steps from caf\u00e9\nto caf\u00e9, at the club, amongst friends, dividing his projects, and\ntormenting himself in a hundred and one ways, one more absurd than the\nother.\n\n\u201cWill you allow me, dear, to make an observation?\u201d\n\nThe question is asked by a man still in bed, and is addressed to his\nwife, who is near him under the same sheet, and is still sleepy.\n\n\u201cAbout what?\u201d\n\n\u201cAbout the French song you sang yesterday at the countess\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what have you to say about it?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat you pronounced the _u_ very badly, just as if it were _ou_.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd have you nothing else to criticise?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. Now do not be angry; if your husband does not tell you of these\nthings\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cBravo, capital, and a thousand thanks; above all, let me congratulate\nyou on the time you have selected for correcting my errors in French\npronunciation. Instead of wishing me good-morning with a kiss, a\ncaress, or a loving word the French professor gives me a lesson in\nlanguage. Do you give it to me gratuitously, or what do you charge for\nit?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere you are, up on your high horse in a moment, and for such a\ntrifle. You are a Tuscan and the _u_ is hard and difficult for those\nlips of yours, which distil milk and honey; but another time be\ncareful. People will say you do not know French.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what French! I ask you if in the excitement of the music, or the\ntorrent of notes, there is anyone who would notice if one said _u_ or\n_ou_. And I do not speak of a vowel only. Who listens to the words?\nThey can only be distinguished with difficulty.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere are those who notice. First of all, the French, who do not like\nto hear their language mutilated; then the envious, the spiteful. Now\nonly see, each time you had to repeat the word _dur_, which you always\npronounced _dour_, the Marchioness Vittoria smiled, and looked at her\nsister, who laughed and then pursed her lips to imitate you. Neither\none nor the other was aware that I saw all their pantomime in the\nmirror.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow can you tell what they were laughing at? I know that I was very\nmuch applauded, and that my voice and method of singing were praised.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou certainly sing well, but remember that in good society applause\nis bestowed upon all, especially upon handsome women.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but only to those who know how to pronounce the _u_.\u201d\n\n\u201cShall I tell you all, since you are determined to take offence at the\nslightest observation which I make?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, tell me.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, the Duke of St. Etienne whilst they so loudly applauded you\nbent forward to his cousin and said: \u2018_Oui, elle chant\u00e9 tr\u00e8s-bien,\nmais elle a le timbre de la voix un peu dour_.\u2019 And the amiable little\ncousin covered her face to hide her Homeric laugh.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Dur_ or _dour_, I must get up an hour earlier, or else you will\ndrive me mad. My day will be a happy one, and I shall have you to\nthank for it. A thousand thanks, you master of French!\u201d\n\nTo know the reason of this sudden burst of anger, why from being\nslightly keen the conversation became suddenly bitter, and the notes\nfrom sharp became acute, you must understand that the cousin of the\nduke was, from position, youth, and beauty, the official rival of the\nlady who pronounced _u_ as _ou_.\n\n\u2042\n\nThey are both seated at the table with their four children, their ages\nranging from five to twelve years. She, the mother, is helping them\nall. He is watching the distribution of a delicious custard. From time\nto time he frowns, and shakes his head in sign of disapprobation.\n\nAnd this pantomime continued so long that at last she became aware of\nit, and in her turn looked at him crossly and put down the spoon.\n\n\u201cWhat is the matter? Some new criticism?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, but it\u2019s no new subject of complaint. For some time past I have\nnoticed the thing every day at breakfast, dinner, and supper, and if\nI have not given utterance to my dislike, it has been to avoid any\nunpleasantness; but to-day it seems as if I were losing patience.\u201d\n\n\u201cLose it; I will pick it up.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou might have a little more consideration, especially when you\nusurp the prerogative of a god and distribute good and evil with such\nauthority.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d\n\n\u201cI mean that you always serve the boys first and the girls after,\nwhilst in all ages and countries ladies are served first.\u201d\n\nShe began to laugh heartily.\n\n\u201cBut I see no ladies here, only children, who have no sex in my eyes,\nfor I love them all equally. To-day, and for several days past, I have\nhelped Cecchino and Pietro first because they are near me. When Maria\nwas in Cecchino\u2019s place I helped her first. What! ought we to teach\nchildren, in their earliest age of innocence, etiquette and the laws\nof society? This seems to me the height of absurdity.\u201d\n\n\u201cAs to the absurdity of the idea, that is not the question. It is a\nmatter of justice. You always prefer the boys.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you the girls, so we are quits.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut look round and read your condemnation in the plates of the\nchildren. You not only help the boys first, but you give them more.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course; they are older!\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, no, independently of age you are partial.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut when none are the same age?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat difference does one or two years make? The difference is in your\ninjustice, your deplorable partiality.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo me the favour of helping them yourself. It will be one labour the\nless for me and for you a pleasant occupation, a splendid opportunity\nto administer justice in the family. From this time forth I will help\nthem no more.\u201d\n\n\u201cNeither will I.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nFor the honour of the two married people who discoursed so learnedly\non distributive justice, it must be remarked that they spoke in\nGerman, a language the children did not know. So that for this time at\nleast they had no opportunity of learning that heaven is very far from\nmost families, and that human justice is generally very unjust.\n\nThe reader will be grateful to me for not wearying him longer with\nother sketches taken from real life revealing the matrimonial\npurgatory. Hell is awful, but it has its dramatic emotions and these\noffer some compensation for all there is of monstrous, sanguinary,\nor horrible. Purgatory instead is very small, mean, and deplorably\nvulgar. There are no ocean storms, but bogs which submerge us inch by\ninch; no tiger bites, but mosquito stings; no lion\u2019s claws, but the\npuncture of the flea; no delirium or crime, but secret sobs and silent\ntears; the continual itching of a scab which heals, forms a crust,\nand is again broken; an exudation of malignant humours which leak out\ndrop by drop from the marrow of the bones through the tissues, to the\nskin, and there they remain viscid, fetid, and contagious. This is a\ntrue but not very enticing picture of the purgatory of marriage, a\nhundred times worse than the purgatory of the Catholic Church, which\nafter a longer or shorter time leads to heaven. This other only leads\nthrough a long, sorrowful life, to death at the last.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nPARADISE.\n\n\nThey had been seated near each other for some time on the same\nsofa, not in the voluptuous atmosphere of desire, but in a calm and\ningenuous admiration of each other.\n\nThey had no desires, for all were satisfied, but they were not\nindifferent nor were they weary, for the light of love shown eternally\nin their heaven; twilights of laughing morn or melancholy sundowns,\nbut never night. True faithful love knows no darkness. When the\nplanetary sun sinks in the west there are lighted for true lovers the\nmany-coloured lamps of an electric beacon, which, like an iridescent\nrainbow, joins sundown to dawn.\n\nOn her knees, as if in a sweet doze, a volume of Musset was lying half\nopen, and her right hand was more than pressed, it was grasped, in his\nleft. She had read several pages of the great poet aloud, as only she\nknew how to read, pointing those immortal verses with the passionate\naccent of one who reading loves, and loving reads. At that inspired\nreading he had been always silent, but low and frequent sighs told her\nthat through those hands closed in such close embrace there crept a\ntremor of high and perfect happiness. The current of her touch said to\nhim softly:\n\n\u201cListen, dear, how beautiful it is!\u201d\n\nAnd his answered hers with a tremor:\n\n\u201cThank you, dearest!\u201d\n\nThen all at once, without her having said, \u201cI am tired!\u201d or his having\nsaid, \u201cThat is enough!\u201d the book had fallen on her knees and they\ngazed into each other\u2019s eyes.\n\nIn fact, these two happy beings were nothing but eyes, open, wide\nopen, to drink in all the light that emanated from their souls: eyes\nmoistened with tears which did not fall on their cheeks, but were\nabsorbed as by an invisible sponge which conveyed them to the heart.\nHad anyone been present he would have heard a double _tic-tac_ in\nunison, the harmony of two notes, one high and one low, the divine\nmusic of two souls who converse without words.\n\nHer eyes were sweet, tender, and very mild; they appeared as if they\nwere dissolving in the dew of paradise. His eyes lightened, were\nardent and fiery, drinking in the paradisean ambrosia of her pupils.\n\nTremour of the frame, contraction of clasped hands, and lightning from\ntheir eyes accorded harmoniously with the _tic-tac_ of two hearts\nbound together; the whole an ecstasy of two existences, which are at\none in the pores of the skin, the nerves of the soul, the muscles of\nthe will.\n\nWas it voluptuousness?\n\nNo, it was bliss.\n\nWas it lasciviousness?\n\nNo, something less than all those; only two lives fused into one.\n\nAfter a sigh from both a spark darted from those eyes; and from those\nlips there came at the same moment, as if a signal had been given,\nthese words:\n\n\u201cOh, how handsome you are!\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, how lovely you are!\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nThey had been married for three years, and not the slightest cloud had\nobscured the heaven of their happiness. When, during the first months,\nshe had drawn a deep sigh and said to him,\n\n\u201cOh, my Carlo, how happy we are!\u201d\n\nHe, as if seized with a mysterious fear, had answered her:\n\n\u201cNo, Teresa, do not say so! It seems as if it must bring misfortune.\nWhen God sees a man happy he judges him as standing in contravention\nof human and divine laws, and whispers to him that terrible dictum\nwhich one sees promulgated everywhere in England against those who\nviolate regulations: _You will be prosecuted_. Just imagine if instead\nof one happy person he should find two! The penalty must be doubled.\u201d\n\nShe blushed and smiled. She did not believe at all in that form of\nsuperstition, but willingly obeyed, and for some time did not say:\n\n\u201cCarlo, how happy we are!\u201d\n\nThis did not prevent their being so. One day, however, she repeated\nthe happy exclamation, for which she felt the real necessity in order\nto relieve the fulness of her heart.\n\nCarlo closed her mouth with his hand, but this time she resisted, and\nalmost for fun repeated the same words ten times:\n\n\u201cYou will see that no harm will come to us.\u201d\n\nAnd, in fact, the most complete bliss continued to shine in the blue\nheavens of those two happy ones. They were two and they were one; but\nsometimes, sighing, they had said:\n\n\u201cWhy are we not three?\u201d\n\nIt was he really who had said so; and she then blushed and hung her\nhead, sighing:\n\n\u201cYou are right, Carlo; our happiness is too great for two alone;\ndivided among three it would be better.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut the third, Teresa, ought to be tiny, tiny\u2014so, look,\u201d and he\nopened the palm of his hand to show the length that this third partner\nin their happiness ought to be.\n\nThis discourse, however, did not please Teresa, and after a forced\nsmile she kissed Carlo and gave him a pat on the cheek, and said in a\nshame-faced way, and with an unsteady voice:\n\n\u201cYou know it is not my fault.\u201d\n\n\u201cI know it is not the fault of either of us, we love each other so\nmuch. But do not worry any more about it; we can be happy even if we\nare only two.\u201d\n\nAnd from that day they had never referred again to the third being,\nwho was to be a span long, and was to share their felicity.\n\nBut both of them thought of it constantly. It was not a cloud which\ncovered the sun, but a light mist which dimmed it.\n\nOne day when he was in his study busy writing she ran in as if she had\nsomething very urgent to say to him; then instead, when halfway in the\nroom, she stood still.\n\n\u201cWhat is it, Teresa?\u201d\n\n\u201cI have good and delightful news for you.\u201d\n\n\u201cReally?\u201d\n\nShe smiled and blushed, and with little timid, hesitating steps, as if\nshe had some fault to confess, she came close to the writing table,\nembraced Carlo, and hid her head on his shoulder. She still kept\nsilence and her face was hidden.\n\nIn vain he endeavoured to move her away that he might see her face. He\nthought he guessed, but still feared he might be deceiving himself.\n\n\u201cIs it true, then, really true, my dear, dear Teresa?\u201d\n\nWith a sudden courage she took one of his hands and placed it on her\nheart.\n\n\u201cListen, Carlo, there are three of us.\u201d\n\nHe rose suddenly, agitated, embraced her, and kissed her a hundred\ntimes on the eyes, cheeks, hair, mouth, everywhere, interrupting his\nkisses with sighs of joy.\n\n\u201cThanks, thanks, my adored one.\u201d\n\nThey continued to be happy, and to call themselves so, without fear\nthat God would know it, consider them in contravention, and murmur in\ntheir ears:\n\n_You will be prosecuted._\n\n\u2042\n\nThey had not seen each other for eight days! He had been obliged to\nleave her alone on account of urgent business.\n\nEight days\u2014that is eight centuries! He had written eight times, she\nten, for on one day which seemed longer than the others she had\nwritten three times, in the three different languages she knew.\n\nIn the last, written in English in the evening, she finished with\nthese words: \u201cWhy do I not know seven languages? Then I should have\nwritten seven times to you to-day, because the same thing said in\ndifferent languages seems different, and renews my joy in thinking\nof you. I should like to say I love you in all the languages in the\nworld....\u201d\n\nAt last he telegraphed his arrival, and she had been an hour at the\nstation, walking up and down by the deserted rails.\n\nShe looked at her watch, then at the station clock; it seemed to her\nas if it must have stopped, so much like centuries did those minutes\nappear.\n\nWith her most pleasant smile she went to one of the officials:\n\n\u201cIs the train from Genoa late?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, about ten minutes.\u201d\n\nHow cruel those four words were! How she condemned in her heart\nItalian railways, engine drivers, directors, and shareholders, who by\ntheir negligence had inflicted another ten minutes upon her anxious\nwaiting. She drew near the kiosk of newspapers and books, but without\nlooking at anything; she bought flowers, but did not smell them; she\nkept her eyes turned toward Genoa, strained her ears, bit her lips,\nbut the train came not.\n\nIn a moment a thousand fears flashed through her mind\u2014the remembrance\nof the last collision, the many killed and injured\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\n\nShe did not dare to go to the same official. She went to another,\ntimid and full of fears. This time she did not succeed in smiling.\n\n\u201cIs the train from Genoa still late?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, ten minutes; it will be here in five minutes now.\u201d\n\nShortly after a whistle was heard, then a low and heavy vibration of\nthe rails, a great column of smoke appeared, then the heavy wheels\nrolled under the roof of the station.\n\nShe ran from one carriage to another, impatient and anxious; he was\nnot there.\n\nTravellers alighted in crowds. He was not there.\n\nHer heart beat fast, she did not know what to do. She turned her back\nto the train and walked toward the station master without knowing\nwhat she ought to say, or even could say to him.\n\nBut she had no need of him, for she felt herself clasped closely by\ntwo loving arms.\n\nIt was he, it was Carlo!\n\nThe eight days of agony, the seventy minutes of anxiety, all were\nforgotten, all submerged in a sea of infinite sweetness.\n\nThey said nothing until they were in the carriage, and whilst they\ndrove to their happy home she, kissing him a hundred times, exclaimed:\n\n\u201cDo you know, I love you more than you love me?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut why?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I have written ten times to you, and you only eight times to\nme.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, next time I will write twenty times to you.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, no. I do not want even one letter. Another time, if you will let\nme, I will come with you. I will not be away from you; I cannot bear\nit.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nThey were seated at table at the usual hour, calm and happy, with no\none but themselves.\n\nThey never sat facing each other, but side by side, because even\nduring meal times they felt the necessity of caressing and kissing\neach other.\n\nToward the middle of dinner she said, all at once, as if the words had\nbeen held back, and were now forced from her by some internal and\ninvisible spring:\n\n\u201cDo you know that Lieutenant B. came again at five this evening to pay\nme a visit?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is the third time in one week.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, he always comes at the hours when he knows you are at the\noffice.\u201d\n\n\u201cPerhaps he is not free at any other hour.\u201d\n\n\u201cListen, Paolo, you take it too indifferently. I think, however, that\nin this case you ought to think more of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut what does the lieutenant say to you?\u201d\n\n\u201cAs you may believe, he has never failed in respect toward me\u2014but when\nthere are no other visitors he looks at me too persistently, and says\nthe most innocently polite things, but in too warm a tone.\u201d\n\n\u201cLieutenant B. is my friend, and a perfect gentleman. He has but just\ncome to Modena, and knows nobody. It is only natural that he should\npay visits to the wife of his old friend and fellow-student.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn short, you are satisfied that he should come here three times a\nweek to see me, stay more than an hour, look at me and tell me I am\nbeautiful.\u201d\n\n\u201cI do not believe he has gone beyond that\u2014anyhow I will beg him to\ncome in the evening, when I also am at home.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, that would be to show some mistrust, which, so far, he has not\ndeserved. I will tell my maid to say, once or twice, that I am out,\nand then he will change the hour of his visits.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo what you think best, dear one, and I will do whatever you desire\nto calm your fears about this gallant lieutenant. But do you really\nwish to be more of a royalist than the king, and to disquiet yourself\nwhen I am not disquieted?\u201d\n\n\u201cBut, Paolo, I am sorry that you are not more concerned. It is not\nonly on account of the lieutenant that I speak, but of all those who\nat the theatre, at home, and in society think me beautiful, say so,\nand pay me too much court. In short, my own Paolo, shall I tell you? I\nshould like to see you a little more jealous of me.\u201d\n\nAt this point Paolo put down his knife and fork, fell back in his\nchair, and began to laugh so heartily, so full of merriment, and so\nloudly that it made her laugh as well.\n\n\u201cA hundred wives complain of the jealousy of their husbands, and I\nhave one who deplores my want of it.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, Paolo, do not laugh. This indifference of yours makes me think\nyou do not love me, and that it does not matter to you at all if\nothers pay me too much attention, and that wounds me.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear one, dearest of my treasures, to please you I will become\njealous too.\u201d\n\n\u201cA little\u2014not too much.\u201d\n\n\u201cA little\u2014how much, for example? So? two fingers, three fingers, half\na metre?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, do not make fun of me. You know how much I love you; you know you\nare my very life, that without you I should die. Everything I say to\nyou proceeds from the immense love I bear you. I, you see, am jealous\nof you.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut not I of you, for I esteem you too much, and should fear to\noffend you by any doubts. A woman can always protect herself without\nthe aid of an ally; and when she has a husband whom she loves and\nesteems he supports her in the course of attacks, menaces, and\ngallantry. And together they defend their own honour and felicity.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, dear, you have every reason in the world ... but to make me\nhappy, be a little jealous.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, dear, you shall teach me the way to become so.\u201d\n\nAnd then those two happy creatures interrupted their dinner to throw\nthemselves into each other\u2019s arms, and make peace after this trivial\nbattle.\n\nHe had loosened her handkerchief and had covered her neck with a whole\nstring of kisses.\n\n\u201cSee, Nina, I am jealous of this handkerchief which kisses your\nshoulders all through the day, and so I take its place. Do you not\nsee, Nina, that I begin to obey you? I am taking the first lesson in\njealousy.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nThey were both leaning on the sill of a window which looked toward the\nsea. It was late, and the stars sparkled in a sky which was not yet\ndark, but no longer blue.\n\nNo sound was heard save the murmur of the breeze among the palm leaves\nand the distant flow of the waves as they kissed the shore.\n\nThey did not speak; but the arm of one entwined in that of the other\nspoke with the hand the words for which the lips were silent.\n\nA perfume of jasmine, pungent and voluptuous, rose from the garden\nand intoxicated those two. They were happy.\n\nShe interrupted the long silence:\n\n\u201cDearest, even when you look at the sky and the sea do you not believe\nin God, in another life?\u201d\n\nHe did not answer, but, sighing, pressed her hand still more firmly.\n\n\u201cAfter all, if you will let me say so, this negation of yours of all\nthat reason cannot understand is nothing but pride pure and simple.\u201d\n\nHe was still silent and answered with another pressure of the hand,\nlonger, more tender, and more passionate.\n\n\u201cThe ants come into life and die without knowing man or understanding\nhim. Still man exists; and why cannot we be so many ants to another\nbeing more man, more god, more angel than we are?\u201d\n\nAnd still no answer. His hands only answered with increasing\ntenderness.\n\n\u201cBut speak, my treasure; say something to me.\u201d\n\nHere his obstinately closed lips opened:\n\n\u201cBut _Dr. Faust_ has already answered them in divine words to the\n_Margaret_ of Goethe.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey may be divine words, if you will; but they do not please me at\nall. _Faust_ answers one interrogation with another. He answers like\nthe ancient sybil.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd in what other way can a man answer the problem, To be, or not to\nbe? A dogmatic answer might be an offence to reason, and I hate to\nconfess I believe in something I do not understand.\u201d\n\n\u201cPride, pride, always pride; your modern science is entirely leavened\nwith it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your faith with superstition.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, my love, I do not wish to force my faith upon you; but believe\nsomething, make a faith for yourself, but do not tell me we shall not\nlive even after death.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, my treasure, I also have my faith. Give me a kiss.\u201d\n\nThey kissed each other so long and so warmly that their kiss was the\nloudest sound heard in the deep surrounding stillness.\n\n\u201cSee, I believe in your love. I believe in the joy you give me. If you\nwill, I also believe that our souls at this moment have come to our\nlips from the very depths of our being and have melted in an ecstasy\nof love.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, and must these poor souls die with the bodies which inclose\nthem?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, who knows?\u201d\n\n\u201cThen you doubt your own doubts?\u201d\n\n\u201cListen, love; I am going to make a confession; but say nothing of it\nto any living soul, for men would laugh at me. For them supreme wisdom\nconsists in never changing an opinion or turning again to any faith,\nalthough nature changes its course every day, and progress itself is\nbut a negation of what has happened yesterday. Before knowing you I\nbelieved in nothing, but now the idea that we could not meet again in\nheaven is unsupportable, and I hope\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cMy treasure, if you hope you are halfway on the road which leads to\nfaith.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd with you and for you who knows but I may gain it some day. To-day\nleave me halfway on the road.\u201d\n\n\u2042\n\nShe put her arms round his neck and kissed him anew, and with more\nlength than before.\n\nThe kiss, however, this time made no sound, and nothing was heard in\nthe deep surrounding stillness, but the breeze amongst the palm leaves\nand the ebb and flow of the waves on the shore.\n\n\n\n\n_Printed from American Plates_\n\nBALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.\n\n_London & Edinburgh_\n\n\n\n\n  \u250c\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2510\n  \u2502 Transcriber's Note:                                               \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502 The original spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation have been     \u2502\n  \u2502 retained, with the exception of apparent typographical errors     \u2502\n  \u2502 which have been corrected without note.                           \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502 Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.             \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502 Italicized words are surrounded by underline characters, _like    \u2502\n  \u2502 this_.                                                            \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502 Other corrections:                                                \u2502\n  \u2502  \u2022 Pages 44, 45 and 97: fonder changed to foudre. (coup de        \u2502\n  \u2502    foudre.)                                                       \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502  \u2022 Page 69: The \u2642 and \u2640 symbols should be reversed.               \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502  \u2022 Page 111 footnote 3: Geschlechter changed to Geschlechter.     \u2502\n  \u2502    (\"Der Kampf der Geschlechter.)                                 \u2502\n  \u2502                                                                   \u2502\n  \u2502  \u2022 Page 156: chaupette-bleue changed to choupette-bleue (much     \u2502\n  \u2502    less a <i>choupette-bleue</i>.)                                \u2502\n  \u2514\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2500\u2518","title":"The art of taking a wife","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":37825}