him, she
drew him in.

"But he will kill you!" said he.

"Perhaps so."

But all this amounts to nothing. Let us grant that most husbands sleep
lightly. Let us grant that they sleep without snoring, and that they
always discern the degree of latitude at which their wives are to be
found. Moreover, all the reasons which we have given why twin beds
should be condemned, let us consider but dust in the balance. But, after
all, a final consideration would make us also proscribe the use of beds
ranged within the limits of the same alcove.

To a man placed in the position of a husband, there are circumstances
which have led us to consider the nuptial couch as an actual means of
defence. For it is only in bed that a man can tell whether his wife's
love is increasing or decreasing. It is the conjugal barometer. Now to
sleep in twin beds is to wish for ignorance. You will understand,
when we come to treat of _civil war_ (See Part Third) of what extreme
usefulness a bed is and how many secrets a wife reveals in bed, without
knowing it.

Do not therefore allow yourself to be led astray by the specious good
nature of such an institution as that of twin beds.

It is the silliest, the most treacherous, the most dangerous in the
world. Shame and anathema to him who conceived it!

But in proportion as this method is pernicious in the case of young
married people, it is salutary and advantageous for those who have
reached the twentieth year of married life. Husband and wife can then
most conveniently indulge their duets of snoring. It will, moreover,
be more convenient for their various maladies, whether rheumatism,
obstinate gout, or even the taking of a pinch of snuff; and the cough or
the snore will not in any respect prove a greater hindrance than it is
found to be in any other arrangement.

We have not thought it necessary to mention the exceptional cases which
authorize a husband to resort to twin beds. However, the opinion of
Bonaparte was that when once there had taken place an interchange of
life and breath (such are his words), nothing, not even sickness,
should separate married people. This point is so delicate that it is not
possible here to treat it methodically.

Certain narrow minds will object that there are certain patriarchal
families whose legislation of love is inflexible in the matter of two
beds and an alcove, and that, by this arrangement, they have been happy
from generation to generation. But, the only