Finally, beaten in a thousand conjugal scenes, beaten by the most logical arguments (the late logicians Tripier and Merlin were nothing to her, as the preceding chapter has sufficiently shown you), beaten by the most tender caresses, by tears, by your own words turned against you, for under circumstances like these, a woman lies in wait in her house like a jaguar in the jungle; she does not appear to listen to you, or to heed you; but if a single word, a wish, a gesture, escapes you, she arms herself with it, she whets it to an edge, she brings it to bear upon you a hundred times over; beaten by such graceful tricks as “If you will do so and so, I will do this and that;” for women, in these cases, become greater bargainers than the Jews and Greeks (those, I mean, who sell perfumes and little girls), than the Arabs (those, I mean, who sell little boys and horses), greater higglers than the Swiss and the Genevese, than bankers, and, what is worse than all, than the Genoese!

Finally, beaten in a manner which may be called beaten, you determine to risk a certain portion of your capital in a business undertaking.  One evening, at twilight, seated side by side, or some morning on awakening, while Caroline, half asleep, a pink bud in her white linen, her face smiling in her lace, is beside you, you say to her, “You want this, you say, or you want that:  you told me this or you told me that:”  in short, you hastily enumerate the numberless fancies by which she has over and over again broken your heart, for there is nothing more dreadful than to be unable to satisfy the desires of a beloved wife, and you close with these words: 

“Well, my dear, an opportunity offers of quintupling a hundred thousand francs, and I have decided to make the venture.”

She is wide awake now, she sits up in bed, and gives you a kiss, ah! this time, a real good one!

“You are a dear boy!” is her first word.

We will not mention her last, for it is an enormous and unpronounceable onomatope.

“Now,” she says, “tell me all about it.”

You try to explain the nature of the affair.  But in the first place, women do not understand business, and in the next they do not wish to seem to understand it.  Your dear, delighted Caroline says you were wrong to take her desires, her groans, her sighs for new dresses, in earnest.  She is afraid of your venture, she is frightened at the directors, the shares, and above all at the running expenses, and doesn’t exactly see where the dividend comes in.

Axiom.—­Women are always afraid of things that have to be divided.

In short, Caroline suspects a trap:  but she is delighted to know that she can have her carriage, her box, the numerous styles of dress for her baby, and the rest.  While dissuading you from engaging in the speculation, she is visibly glad to see you investing your money in it.

FIRST PERIOD.—­“Oh, I am the happiest woman on the face of the earth!  Adolphe has just gone into the most splendid venture.  I am going to have a carriage, oh! ever so much handsomer than Madame de Fischtaminel’s; hers is out of fashion.  Mine will have curtains with fringes.  My horses will be mouse-colored, hers are bay,—­they are as common as coppers.”