Honore de Balzac - Analytical Studies

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Your Caroline, so enticing five hours before in this very chamber
where she frisked about like an eel, is now a junk of lead. Were you
the Tropical Zone in person, astride of the Equator, you could not
melt the ice of this little personified Switzerland that pretends to
be asleep, and who could freeze you from head to foot, if she liked.
Ask her one hundred times what is the matter with her, Switzerland
replies by an ultimatum, like the Diet or the Conference of London.

Nothing is the matter with her: she is tired: she is going to sleep.

The more you insist, the more she erects bastions of ignorance, the
more she isolates herself by chevaux-de-frise. If you get impatient,
Caroline begins to dream! You grumble, you are lost.

Axiom.--Inasmuch as women are always willing and able to explain their
strong points, they leave us to guess at their weak ones.

Caroline will perhaps also condescend to assure you that she does not
feel well. But she laughs in her night-cap when you have fallen
asleep, and hurls imprecations upon your slumbering body.

WOMEN'S LOGIC.

You imagine you have married a creature endowed with reason: you are
woefully mistaken, my friend.

Axiom.--Sensitive beings are not sensible beings.

Sentiment is not argument, reason is not pleasure, and pleasure is
certainly not a reason.

"Oh! sir!" she says.

Reply "Ah! yes! Ah!" You must bring forth this "ah!" from the very
depths of your thoracic cavern, as you rush in a rage from the house,
or return, confounded, to your study.

Why? Now? Who has conquered, killed, overthrown you! Your wife's
logic, which is not the logic of Aristotle, nor that of Ramus, nor
that of Kant, nor that of Condillac, nor that of Robespierre, nor that
of Napoleon: but which partakes of the character of all these logics,
and which we must call the universal logic of women, the logic of
English women as it is that of Italian women, of the women of Normandy
and Brittany (ah, these last are unsurpassed!), of the women of Paris,
in short, that of the women in the moon, if there are women in that
nocturnal land, with which the women of the earth have an evident
understanding, angels that they are!

The discussion began after breakfast. Discussions can never take place
in a household save at this hour. A man could hardly have a discussion
with his wife in bed, even if he wanted to: she has too many
advantages over him, and can too easily reduce him to silence. On
leaving the nuptial chamber with a pretty woman in it, a man is apt to
be hungry, if he is young. Breakfast is usually a cheerful meal, and
cheerfulness is not given to argument. In short, you do not open the
business till you have had your tea or your coffee.

You have taken it into your head, for instance, to send your son to
school. All fathers are hypocrites and are never willing to confess
that their own flesh and blood is very troublesome when it walks about
on two legs, lays its dare-devil hands on everything, and is
everywhere at once like a frisky pollywog. Your son barks, mews, and
sings; he breaks, smashes and soils the furniture, and furniture is
dear; he makes toys of everything, he scatters your papers, and he
cuts paper dolls out of the morning's newspaper before you have read
it.

His mother says to him, referring to anything of yours: "Take it!" but
in reference to anything of hers she says: "Take care!"

She cunningly lets him have your things that she may be left in peace.
Her bad faith as a good mother seeks shelter behind her child, your
son is her accomplice. Both are leagued against you like Robert
Macaire and Bertrand against the subscribers to their joint stock
company. The boy is an axe with which foraging excursions are
performed in your domains. He goes either boldly or slyly to maraud in
your wardrobe: he reappears caparisoned in the drawers you laid aside
that morning, and brings to the light of day many articles condemned
to solitary confinement. He brings the elegant Madame Fischtaminel, a
friend whose good graces you cultivate, your girdle for checking
corpulency, bits of cosmetic for dyeing your moustache, old waistcoats
discolored at the arm-holes, stockings slightly soiled at the heels
and somewhat yellow at the toes. It is quite impossible to remark that
these stains are caused by the leather!

Your wife looks at your friend and laughs; you dare not be angry, so
you laugh too, but what a laugh! The unfortunate all know that laugh.

Your son, moreover, gives you a cold sweat, if your razors happen to
be out of their place. If you are angry, the little rebel laughs and
shows his two rows of pearls: if you scold him, he cries. His mother
rushes in! And what a mother she is! A mother who will detest you if
you don't give him the razor! With women there is no middle ground; a
man is either a monster or a model.

At certain times you perfectly understand Herod and his famous decrees
relative to the Massacre of the Innocents, which have only been
surpassed by those of the good Charles X!

Your wife has returned to her sofa, you walk up and down, and stop,
and you boldly introduce the subject by this interjectional remark:

"Caroline, we must send Charles to boarding school."

"Charles cannot go to boarding school," she returns in a mild tone.

"Charles is six years old, the age at which a boy's education begins."

"In the first place," she replies, "it begins at seven. The royal
princes are handed over to their governor by their governess when they
are seven. That's the law and the prophets. I don't see why you
shouldn't apply to the children of private people the rule laid down
for the children of princes. Is your son more forward than theirs? The
king of Rome--"

"The king of Rome is not a case in point."

"What! Is not the king of Rome the son of the Emperor? [Here she
changes the subject.] Well, I declare, you accuse the Empress, do you?
Why, Doctor Dubois himself was present, besides--"

"I said nothing of the kind."

"How you do interrupt, Adolphe."

"I say that the king of Rome [here you begin to raise your voice], the
king of Rome, who was hardly four years old when he left France, is no
example for us."

"That doesn't prevent the fact of the Duke de Bordeaux's having been
placed in the hands of the Duke de Riviere, his tutor, at seven
years." [Logic.]

"The case of the young Duke of Bordeaux is different."

"Then you confess that a boy can't be sent to school before he is
seven years old?" she says with emphasis. [More logic.]

"No, my dear, I don't confess that at all. There is a great deal of
difference between private and public education."

"That's precisely why I don't want to send Charles to school yet. He
ought to be much stronger than he is, to go there."

"Charles is very strong for his age."

"Charles? That's the way with men! Why, Charles has a very weak
constitution; he takes after you. [Here she changes from _tu_ to
_vous_.] But if you are determined to get rid of your son, why put him
out to board, of course. I have noticed for some time that the dear
child annoys you."

"Annoys me? The idea! But we are answerable for our children, are we
not? It is time Charles' education was began: he is getting very bad
habits here, he obeys no one, he thinks himself perfectly free to do
as he likes, he hits everybody and nobody dares to hit him back. He
ought to be placed in the midst of his equals, or he will grow up with
the most detestable temper."

"Thank you: so I am bringing Charles up badly!"

"I did not say that: but you will always have excellent reasons for
keeping him at home."

Here the _vous_ becomes reciprocal and the discussion takes a bitter
turn on both sides. Your wife is very willing to wound you by saying
_vous_, but she feels cross when it becomes mutual.

"The long and the short of it is that you want to get my child away,
you find that he is between us, you are jealous of your son, you want
to tyrannize over me at your ease, and you sacrifice your boy! Oh, I
am smart enough to see through you!"

"You make me out like Abraham with his knife! One would think there
were no such things as schools! So the schools are empty; nobody sends
their children to school!"

"You are trying to make me appear ridiculous," she retorts. "I know
that there are schools well enough, but people don't send boys of six
there, and Charles shall not start now."

"Don't get angry, my dear."

"As if I ever get angry! I am a woman and know how to suffer in
silence."

"Come, let us reason together."

"You have talked nonsense enough."

"It is time that Charles should learn to read and write; later in
life, he will find difficulties sufficient to disgust him."

Here, you talk for ten minutes without interruption, and you close
with an appealing "Well?" armed with an intonation which suggests an
interrogation point of the most crooked kind.

"Well!" she replies, "it is not yet time for Charles to go to school."

You have gained nothing at all.

"But, my dear, Monsieur Deschars certainly sent his little Julius to
school at six years. Go and examine the schools and you will find lots
of little boys of six there."

You talk for ten minutes more without the slightest interruption, and
then you ejaculate another "Well?"

"Little Julius Deschars came home with chilblains," she says.

"But Charles has chilblains here."

"Never," she replies, proudly.

In a quarter of an hour, the main question is blocked by a side
discussion on this point: "Has Charles had chilblains or not?"

You bandy contradictory allegations; you no longer believe each other;
you must appeal to a third party.

Axiom.--Every household has its Court of Appeals which takes no notice
of the merits, but judges matters of form only.

The nurse is sent for. She comes, and decides in favor of your wife.
It is fully decided that Charles has never had chilblains.

Caroline glances triumphantly at you and utters these monstrous words:
"There, you see Charles can't possibly go to school!"

You go out breathless with rage. There is no earthly means of
convincing your wife that there is not the slightest reason for your
son's not going to school in the fact that he has never had
chilblains.

That evening, after dinner, you hear this atrocious creature finishing
a long conversation with a woman with these words: "He wanted to send
Charles to school, but I made him see that he would have to wait."

Some husbands, at a conjuncture like this, burst out before everybody;
their wives take their revenge six weeks later, but the husbands gain
this by it, that Charles is sent to school the very day he gets into
any mischief. Other husbands break the crockery, and keep their rage
to themselves. The knowing ones say nothing and bide their time.

A woman's logic is exhibited in this way upon the slightest occasion,
about a promenade or the proper place to put a sofa. This logic is
extremely simple, inasmuch as it consists in never expressing but one
idea, that which contains the expression of their will. Like
everything pertaining to female nature, this system may be resolved
into two algebraic terms--Yes: no. There are also certain little
movements of the head which mean so much that they may take the place
of either.

THE JESUITISM OF WOMEN.

The most jesuitical Jesuit of Jesuits is yet a thousand times less
jesuitical than the least jesuitical woman,--so you may judge what
Jesuits women are! They are so jesuitical that the cunningest Jesuit
himself could never guess to what extent of jesuitism a woman may go,
for there are a thousand ways of being jesuitical, and a woman is such
an adroit Jesuit, that she has the knack of being a Jesuit without
having a jesuitical look. You can rarely, though you can sometimes,
prove to a Jesuit that he is one: but try once to demonstrate to a
woman that she acts or talks like a Jesuit. She would be cut to pieces
rather than confess herself one.

She, a Jesuit! The very soul of honor and loyalty! She a Jesuit! What
do you mean by "Jesuit?" She does not know what a Jesuit is: what is a
Jesuit? She has never seen or heard of a Jesuit! It's you who are a
Jesuit! And she proves with jesuitical demonstration that you are a
subtle Jesuit.

Here is one of the thousand examples of a woman's jesuitism, and this
example constitutes the most terrible of the petty troubles of married
life; it is perhaps the most serious.

Induced by a desire the thousandth time expressed by Caroline, who
complained that she had to go on foot or that she could not buy a new
hat, a new parasol, a new dress, or any other article of dress, often
enough:

That she could not dress her baby as a sailor, as a lancer, as an
artilleryman of the National Guard, as a Highlander with naked legs
and a cap and feather, in a jacket, in a roundabout, in a velvet sack,
in boots, in trousers: that she could not buy him toys enough, nor
mechanical moving mice and Noah's Arks enough:

That she could not return Madame Deschars or Madame de Fischtaminel
their civilities, a ball, a party, a dinner: nor take a private box at
the theatre, thus avoiding the necessity of sitting cheek by jowl with
men who are either too polite or not enough so, and of calling a cab
at the close of the performance; apropos of which she thus discourses:

"You think it cheaper, but you are mistaken: men are all the same! I
soil my shoes, I spoil my hat, my shawl gets wet and my silk stockings
get muddy. You economize twenty francs by not having a carriage,--no
not twenty, sixteen, for your pay four for the cab--and you lose fifty
francs' worth of dress, besides being wounded in your pride on seeing
a faded bonnet on my head: you don't see why it's faded, but it's
those horrid cabs. I say nothing of the annoyance of being tumbled and
jostled by a crowd of men, for it seems you don't care for that!"

That she could not buy a piano instead of hiring one, nor keep up with
the fashions; (there are some women, she says, who have all the new
styles, but just think what they give in return! She would rather
throw herself out of the window than imitate them! She loves you too
much. Here she sheds tears. She does not understand such women). That
she could not ride in the Champs Elysees, stretched out in her own
carriage, like Madame de Fischtaminel. (There's a woman who
understands life: and who has a well-taught, well-disciplined and very
contented husband: his wife would go through fire and water for him!)

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."

"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!"

Upon this, the discussion grows bitter.

You are good for nothing--you have no business capacity; women alone
take clear views of things. You have risked your children's bread,
though she tried to dissuade you from it.--You cannot say it was for
her. Thank God, she has nothing to reproach herself with. A hundred
times a month she alludes to your disaster: "If my husband had not
thrown away his money in such and such a scheme, I could have had this
and that." "The next time you want to go into an affair, perhaps
you'll consult me!" Adolphe is accused and convicted of having
foolishly lost one hundred thousand francs, without an object in view,
like a dolt, and without having consulted his wife. Caroline advises
her friends not to marry. She complains of the incapacity of men who
squander the fortunes of their wives. Caroline is vindictive, she
makes herself generally disagreeable. Pity Adolphe! Lament, ye
husbands! O bachelors, rejoice and be exceeding glad!

MEMORIES AND REGRETS.

After several years of wedded life, your love has become so placid,
that Caroline sometimes tries, in the evening, to wake you up by
various little coquettish phrases. There is about you a certain
calmness and tranquillity which always exasperates a lawful wife.
Women see in it a sort of insolence: they look upon the indifference
of happiness as the fatuity of confidence, for of course they never
imagine their inestimable equalities can be regarded with disdain:
their virtue is therefore enraged at being so cordially trusted in.

In this situation, which is what every couple must come to, and which
both husband and wife must expect, no husband dares confess that the
constant repetition of the same dish has become wearisome; but his
appetite certainly requires the condiments of dress, the ideas excited
by absence, the stimulus of an imaginary rivalry.

In short, at this period, you walk very comfortably with your wife on
your arm, without pressing hers against your heart with the solicitous
and watchful cohesion of a miser grasping his treasure. You gaze
carelessly round upon the curiosities in the street, leading your wife
in a loose and distracted way, as if you were towing a Norman scow.
Come now, be frank! If, on passing your wife, an admirer were gently
to press her, accidentally or purposely, would you have the slightest
desire to discover his motives? Besides, you say, no woman would seek
to bring about a quarrel for such a trifle. Confess this, too, that
the expression "such a trifle" is exceedingly flattering to both of
you.

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:

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