“What is this venture, madame?”

“Oh, it’s splendid—­the stock is going up; he explained it to me before he went into it, for Adolphe never does anything without consulting me.”

“You are very fortunate.”

“Marriage would be intolerable without entire confidence, and Adolphe tells me everything.”

Thus, Adolphe, you are the best husband in Paris, you are adorable, you are a man of genius, you are all heart, an angel.  You are petted to an uncomfortable degree.  You bless the marriage tie.  Caroline extols men, calling them “kings of creation,” women were made for them, man is naturally generous, and matrimony is a delightful institution.

For three, sometimes six, months, Caroline executes the most brilliant concertos and solos upon this delicious theme:  “I shall be rich!  I shall have a thousand a month for my dress:  I am going to keep my carriage!”

If your son is alluded to, it is merely to ask about the school to which he shall be sent.

SECOND PERIOD.—­“Well, dear, how is your business getting on?—­What has become of it?—­How about that speculation which was to give me a carriage, and other things?—­It is high time that affair should come to something.—­It is a good while cooking.—­When will it begin to pay?  Is the stock going up?—­There’s nobody like you for hitting upon ventures that never amount to anything.”

One day she says to you, “Is there really an affair?”

If you mention it eight or ten months after, she returns: 

“Ah!  Then there really is an affair!”

This woman, whom you thought dull, begins to show signs of extraordinary wit, when her object is to make fun of you.  During this period, Caroline maintains a compromising silence when people speak of you, or else she speaks disparagingly of men in general:  “Men are not what they seem:  to find them out you must try them.”  “Marriage has its good and its bad points.”  “Men never can finish anything.”

THIRD PERIOD.—­Catastrophe.—­This magnificent affair which was to yield five hundred per cent, in which the most cautious, the best informed persons took part—­peers, deputies, bankers—­all of them Knights of the Legion of Honor—­this venture has been obliged to liquidate!  The most sanguine expect to get ten per cent of their capital back.  You are discouraged.

Caroline has often said to you, “Adolphe, what is the matter?  Adolphe, there is something wrong.”

Finally, you acquaint Caroline with the fatal result:  she begins by consoling you.

“One hundred thousand francs lost!  We shall have to practice the strictest economy,” you imprudently add.

The jesuitism of woman bursts out at this word “economy.”  It sets fire to the magazine.

“Ah! that’s what comes of speculating!  How is it that you, ordinarily so prudent, could go and risk a hundred thousand francs! You know I was against it from the beginning! BUT YOU WOULD NOT LISTEN TO ME!”