hich the catastrophe
may be brought about, what should be the motives which lead a husband
to vary this scene, in accordance with the greater or less degree of
strength which his wife's character possesses.

Let us pursue this subject.

If by good luck it happens that your wife has put her lover in a place
of concealment, the catastrophe will be very much more successful.

Even if the apartment is not arranged according to the principles
prescribed in the Meditation, you will easily discern the place into
which the celibate has vanished, although he be not, like Lord Byron's
Don Juan, bundled up under the cushion of a divan. If by chance your
apartment is in disorder, you ought to have sufficient discernment to
know that there is only one place in which a man could bestow himself.
Finally, if by some devilish inspiration he has made himself so small
that he has squeezed into some unimaginable lurking-place (for we may
expect anything from a celibate), well, either your wife cannot help
casting a glance towards this mysterious spot, or she will pretend to
look in an exactly opposite direction, and then nothing is easier for a
husband than to set a mouse-trap for his wife.

The hiding-place being discovered, you must walk straight up to the
lover. You must meet him face to face!

And now you must endeavor to produce a fine effect. With your face
turned three-quarters towards him, you must raise your head with an air
of superiority. This attitude will enhance immensely the effect which
you aim at producing.

The most essential thing to do at this moment, is to overwhelm the
celibate by some crushing phrase which you have been manufacturing all
the time; when you have thus floored him, you will coldly show him the
door. You will be very polite, but as relentless as the executioner's
axe, and as impassive as the law. This freezing contempt will already
probably have produced a revolution in the mind of your wife. There
must be no shouts, no gesticulations, no excitement. "Men of high social
rank," says a young English author, "never behave like their inferiors,
who cannot lose a fork without sounding the alarm throughout the whole
neighborhood."

When the celibate has gone, you will find yourself alone with your wife,
and then is the time when you must subjugate her forever.

You should therefore stand before her, putting on an air whose affected
calmness betrays the profoundest emotion; then you must choose from
a