t us consider these two unique situations.

But first of all we will observe that husbands ought always to be in a
position to strike terror in their homes and ought long before to make
preparations for the matrimonial second of September.

Thus a husband, from the moment that his wife has caused him to perceive
certain _first symptoms_, should never fail to give, time after time,
his personal opinion on the course of conduct to be pursued by a husband
in a great matrimonial crisis.

"As for me," you should say, "I should have no hesitation in killing the
man I caught at my wife's feet."

With regard to the discussion that you will thus give rise to, you will
be led on to aver that the law ought to have given to the husband, as it
did in ancient Rome, the right of life and death over his children, so
that he could slay those who were spurious.

These ferocious opinions, which really do not bind you to anything, will
impress your wife with salutary terror; you will enumerate them lightly,
even laughingly--and say to her, "Certainly, my dear, I would kill you
right gladly. Would you like to be murdered by me?"

A woman cannot help fearing that this pleasantry may some day become a
very serious matter, for in these crimes of impulse there is a certain
proof of love; and then women who know better than any one else how
to say true things laughingly at times suspect their husbands of this
feminine trick.

When a husband surprises his wife engaged in even innocent conversation
with her lover, his face still calm, should produce the effect
mythologically attributed to the celebrated Gorgon.

In order to produce a favorable catastrophe at this juncture, you
must act in accordance with the character of your wife, either play a
pathetic scene a la Diderot, or resort to irony like Cicero, or rush to
your pistols loaded with a blank charge, or even fire them off, if you
think that a serious row is indispensable.

A skillful husband may often gain a great advantage from a scene
of unexaggerated sentimentality. He enters, he sees the lover and
transfixes him with a glance. As soon as the celibate retires, he falls
at the feet of his wife, he declaims a long speech, in which among other
phrases there occurs this:

"Why, my dear Caroline, I have never been able to love you as I should!"

He weeps, and she weeps, and this tearful catastrophe leaves nothing to
be desired.

We would explain, apropos of the second method by w