nt
precipitates the avalanche or decides a revolution? It may result from
anything or nothing. But finally, Adolphe, after a period to be
determined in each case by the circumstances of the couple, utters
this fatal phrase, in the midst of a discussion: "Ah! when I was a
bachelor!"

Her husband's bachelor life is to a woman what the phrase, "My dear
deceased," is to a widow's second husband. These two stings produce
wounds which are never completely healed.

Then Adolphe goes on like General Bonaparte haranguing the Five
Hundred: "We are on a volcano!--The house no longer has a head, the
time to come to an understanding has arrived.--You talk of happiness,
Caroline, but you have compromised, imperiled it by your exactions,
you have violated the civil code: you have mixed yourself up in the
discussions of business, and you have invaded the conjugal authority.
--We must reform our internal affairs."

Caroline does not shout, like the Five Hundred, "Down with the
dictator!" For people never shout a man down, when they feel that they
can put him down.

"When I was a bachelor I had none but new stockings! I had a clean
napkin every day on my plate. The restaurateur only fleeced me of a
determinate sum. I have given up to you my beloved liberty! What have
you done with it?"

"Am I then so very wrong, Adolphe, to have sought to spare you
numerous cares?" says Caroline, taking an attitude before her husband.
"Take the key of the money-box back,--but do you know what will
happen? I am ashamed, but you will compel me to go on to the stage to
get the merest necessaries of life. Is this what you want? Degrade
your wife, or bring in conflict two contrary, hostile interests--"

Such, for three quarters of the French people is an exact definition
of marriage.

"Be perfectly easy, dear," resumes Caroline, seating herself in her
chair like Marius on the ruins of Carthage, "I will never ask you for
anything. I am not a beggar! I know what I'll do--you don't know me
yet."

"Well, what will you do?" asks Adolphe; "it seems impossible to joke
or have an explanation with you women. What will you do?"

"It doesn't concern you at all."

"Excuse me, madame, quite the contrary. Dignity, honor--"

"Oh, have no fear of that, sir. For your sake more than for my own, I
will keep it a dead secret."

"Come, Caroline, my own Carola, what do you mean to do?"

Caroline darts a viper-like glance at Adolphe, who recoils and
proceeds to w