Adolphe says to himself, “Caroline wants a dress.”

Poor man!

Some time afterward, Monsieur Deschars furnishes his wife’s chamber anew.  Then he has his wife’s diamonds set in the prevailing fashion.  Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allows his wife to go out without offering her his arm.

If you bring Caroline anything, no matter what, it is never equal to what Monsieur Deschars has done.  If you allow yourself the slightest gesture or expression a little livelier than usual, if you speak a little bit loud, you hear the hissing and viper-like remark: 

“You wouldn’t see Monsieur Deschars behaving like this!  Why don’t you take Monsieur Deschars for a model?”

In short, this idiotic Monsieur Deschars is forever looming up in your household on every conceivable occasion.

The expression—­“Do you suppose Monsieur Deschars ever allows himself” —­is a sword of Damocles, or what is worse, a Damocles pin:  and your self-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly sticking it, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety of unforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning terms of endearment, and with the most agreeable little ways.

Adolphe, stung till he finds himself tattooed, finally does what is done by police authorities, by officers of government, by military tacticians.  He casts his eye on Madame de Fischtaminel, who is still young, elegant and a little bit coquettish, and places her (this had been the rascal’s intention for some time) like a blister upon Caroline’s extremely ticklish skin.

O you, who often exclaim, “I don’t know what is the matter with my wife!” you will kiss this page of transcendent philosophy, for you will find in it the key to every woman’s character!  But as to knowing women as well as I know them, it will not be knowing them much; they don’t know themselves!  In fact, as you well know, God was Himself mistaken in the only one that He attempted to manage and to whose manufacture He had given personal attention.

Caroline is very willing to sting Adolphe at all hours, but this privilege of letting a wasp off now and then upon one’s consort (the legal term), is exclusively reserved to the wife.  Adolphe is a monster if he starts off a single fly at Caroline.  On her part, it is a delicious joke, a new jest to enliven their married life, and one dictated by the purest intentions; while on Adolphe’s part, it is a piece of cruelty worthy a Carib, a disregard of his wife’s heart, and a deliberate plan to give her pain.  But that is nothing.

“So you are really in love with Madame de Fischtaminel?” Caroline asks.  “What is there so seductive in the mind or the manners of the spider?”

“Why, Caroline—­”

“Oh, don’t undertake to deny your eccentric taste,” she returns, checking a negation on Adolphe’s lips.  “I have long seen that you prefer that Maypole [Madame de Fischtaminel is thin] to me.  Very well! go on; you will soon see the difference.”