in betraying their indifference towards each other show the same naivete with which they first betrayed their love.  At the time when you are traversing with madame the ravishing fields of the seventh heaven—­where according to their temperament, newly married people remain encamped for a longer or shorter time, as the preceding Meditation has proved—­you go little or not at all into society.  Happy as you are in your home, if you do go abroad, it will be for the purpose of making up a choice party and visiting the theatre, the country, etc.  From the moment you the newly wedded make your appearance in the world again, you and your bride together, or separately, and are seen to be attentive to each other at balls, at parties, at all the empty amusements created to escape the void of an unsatisfied heart, the celibates discern that your wife comes there in search of distraction; her home, her husband are therefore wearisome to her.

At this point the celibate knows that half of the journey is accomplished.  At this point you are on the eve of being minotaurized, and your wife is likely to become inconsistent; which means that she is on the contrary likely to prove very consistent in her conduct, that she has reasoned it out with astonishing sagacity and that you are likely very soon to smell fire.  From that moment she will not in appearance fail in any of her duties, and will put on the colors of that virtue in which she is most lacking.  Said Crebillon: 

    “Alas! 
  Is it right to be heir of the man who we slay?”

Never has she seemed more anxious to please you.  She will seek, as much as possible, to allay the secret wounds which she thinks about inflicting upon your married bliss, she will do so by those little attentions which induce you to believe in the eternity of her love; hence the proverb, “Happy as a fool.”  But in accordance with the character of women, they either despise their own husbands from the very fact that they find no difficulty in deceiving them; or they hate them when they find themselves circumvented by them; or they fall into a condition of indifference towards them, which is a thousand times worse than hatred.  In this emergency, the first thing which may be diagnosed in a woman is a decided oddness of behavior.  A woman loves to be saved from herself, to escape her conscience, but without the eagerness shown in this connection by wives who are thoroughly unhappy.  She dresses herself with especial care, in order, she will tell you, to flatter your amour-propre by drawing all eyes upon her in the midst of parties and public entertainments.

When she returns to the bosom of her stupid home you will see that, at times, she is gloomy and thoughtful, then suddenly laughing and gay as if beside herself; or assuming the serious expression of a German when he advances to the fight.  Such varying moods always indicate the terrible doubt and hesitation to which we have already referred.  There are women who read romances in order to feast upon the images of love cleverly depicted and always varied, of love crowned yet triumphant; or in order to familiarize themselves in thought with the perils of an intrigue.