e no idea of it; for the scientific
jargon of doctors can only be compared to the layers in which they
envelop their pills.

An honest woman in her chamber with the doctor is like a minister sure
of a majority; she has it in her power to make a horse, or a carriage,
according to her good pleasure and her taste; she will send you away
or receive you, as she likes. Sometimes she will pretend to be ill in
order to have a chamber separate from yours; sometimes she will
surround herself with all the paraphernalia of an invalid; she will
have an old woman for a nurse, regiments of vials and of bottles, and,
environed by these ramparts, will defy you by her invalid airs. She
will talk to you in such a depressing way of the electuaries and of
the soothing draughts which she has taken, of the agues which she has
had, of her plasters and cataplasms, that she will fill you with
disgust at these sickly details, if all the time these sham sufferings
are not intended to serve as engines by means of which, eventually, a
successful attack may be made on that singular abstraction known as
_your honor_.

In this way your wife will be able to fortify herself at every point
of contact which you possess with the world, with society and with
life. Thus everything will take arms against you, and you will be
alone among all these enemies. But suppose that it is your
unprecedented privilege to possess a wife who is without religious
connections, without parents or intimate friends; that you have
penetration enough to see through all the tricks by which your wife's
lover tries to entrap you; that you still have sufficient love for
your fair enemy to resist all the Martons of the earth; that, in fact,
you have for your doctor a man who is so celebrated that he has no
time to listen to the maunderings of your wife; or that if your
Esculapius is madame's vassal, you demand a consultation, and an
incorruptible doctor intervenes every time the favorite doctor
prescribes a remedy that disquiets you; even in that case, your
prospects will scarcely be more brilliant. In fact, even if you do not
succumb to this invasion of allies, you must not forget that, so far,
your adversary has not, so to speak, struck the decisive blow. If you
hold out still longer, your wife, having flung round you thread upon
thread, as a spider spins his web, an invisible net, will resort to
the arms which nature has given her, which civilization has perfected,
and which will