You are in this position, but you have as yet proceeded no farther.  Still, you have a horrible thought which you bury in the depths of your heart and conscience:  Caroline has not come up to your expectations.  Caroline has imperfections, which, during the high tides of the honey-moon, were concealed under the water, but which the ebb of the gall-moon has laid bare.  You have several times run against these breakers, your hopes have been often shipwrecked upon them, more than once your desires—­those of a young marrying man—­(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden gondolas go to pieces there:  the flower of the cargo went to the bottom, the ballast of the marriage remained.  In short, to make use of a colloquial expression, as you talk over your marriage with yourself you say, as you look at Caroline, “She is not what I took her to be!”

Some evening, at a ball, in society, at a friend’s house, no matter where, you meet a sublime young woman, beautiful, intellectual and kind:  with a soul, oh! a soul of celestial purity, and of miraculous beauty!  Yes, there is that unchangeable oval cut of face, those features which time will never impair, that graceful and thoughtful brow.  The unknown is rich, well-educated, of noble birth:  she will always be what she should be, she knows when to shine, when to remain in the background:  she appears in all her glory and power, the being you have dreamed of, your wife that should have been, she whom you feel you could love forever.  She would always have flattered your little vanities, she would understand and admirably serve your interests.  She is tender and gay, too, this young lady who reawakens all your better feelings, who rekindles your slumbering desires.

You look at Caroline with gloomy despair, and here are the phantom-like thoughts which tap, with wings of a bat, the beak of a vulture, the body of a death’s-head moth, upon the walls of the palace in which, enkindled by desire, glows your brain like a lamp of gold: 

FIRST STANZA.  Ah, dear me, why did I get married?  Fatal idea!  I allowed myself to be caught by a small amount of cash.  And is it really over?  Cannot I have another wife?  Ah, the Turks manage things better!  It is plain enough that the author of the Koran lived in the desert!

SECOND STANZA.  My wife is sick, she sometimes coughs in the morning.  If it is the design of Providence to remove her from the world, let it be speedily done for her sake and for mine.  The angel has lived long enough.

THIRD STANZA.  I am a monster!  Caroline is the mother of my children!

You go home, that night, in a carriage with your wife:  you think her perfectly horrible:  she speaks to you, but you answer in monosyllables.  She says, “What is the matter?” and you answer, “Nothing.”  She coughs, you advise her to see the doctor in the morning.  Medicine has its hazards.

FOURTH STANZA.  I have been told that a physician, poorly paid by the heirs of his deceased patient, imprudently exclaimed, “What! they cut down my bill, when they owe me forty thousand a year.” I would not haggle over fees!