I thought her amusement rather out of place; we had risked our lives
stupidly, and I still felt a cold shiver down my back, and I was rather
hurt at her foolish laughter. "Supposing your husband had seen me?" I
said. "There was no danger of that," she replied. "What do you mean? ...
No danger? That is a good joke! ... If he had stooped down, he must have
seen me."

She did not laugh any more; she only looked at me with her large eyes,
which were bright with merriment. "He would not have stooped." "Why?" I
persisted. "Just suppose that he had let his hat fall, he would have
been sure to pick it up, and then... I was well prepared to defend
myself, in this costume!" She put her two strong, round arms about my
neck, and, lowering her voice, as she did when she said: "I _adorre_
you," she whispered: "Then he would _never_ have got up again." I did
not understand her, and said: "What do you mean?"

She gave me a cunning wink, and put out her hand to the chair on which I
had sat down, and her outstretched hands, her smile, her half-open lips,
her white, sharp, and ferocious teeth, all drew my attention to the
little axe which was used for cutting wood, whose sharp blade was
glistening in the candle-light, and while she put out her hand as if she
were going to take it, she put her left arm round me, and drawing me to
her, and putting her lips against mine, with her right arm she made a
motion as if she were cutting off the head of a kneeling man!

This, my friend, is the manner in which people here understand conjugal
duties, love, and hospitality!

AN ARTIFICE

The old doctor and his young patient were talking by the side of the
fire. There was nothing the matter with her, except that she had one of
those little feminine ailments from which pretty women frequently
suffer; slight anaemia, nervous attack, and a suspicion of fatigue, of
that fatigue from which newly married people often suffer at the end of
the first month of their married life, when they have made a love match.

She was lying on the couch and talking. "No, doctor," she said; "I shall
never be able to understand a woman deceiving her husband. Even allowing
that she does not love him, that she pays no heed to her vows and
promises, how can she give herself to another man? How can she conceal
the intrigue from other people's eyes? How can it be possible to love
amidst lies and treason?"

The doctor smiled, and replied: "It is perfectly easy, and