save me
from indulging in this sort of eloquence.

When a man wakes up in the morning, his drowsy face grotesquely
surmounted by the folds of a silk handkerchief which falls over his
left temple like a police cap, he is certainly a laughable object, and
it is difficult to recognize in him the glorious spouse, celebrated in
the strophes of Rousseau; but, nevertheless, there is a certain gleam
of life to illume the stupidity of a countenance half dead--and if you
artists wish to make fine sketches, you should travel on the
stage-coach and, when the postilion wakes up the postmaster, just
examine the physiognomies of the departmental clerks! But, were you a
hundred times as pleasant to look upon as are these bureaucratic
physiognomies, at least, while you have your mouth shut, your eyes are
open, and you have some expression in your countenance. Do you know
how you looked an hour before you awoke, or during the first hour of
your sleep, when you were neither a man nor an animal, but merely a
thing, subject to the dominion of those dreams which issue from the
gate of horn? But this is a secret between your wife and God.

Is it for the purpose of insinuating the imbecility of slumber that
the Romans decorated the heads of their beds with the head of an ass?
We leave to the gentlemen who form the academy of inscriptions the
elucidation of this point.

Assuredly, the first man who took it into his head, at the inspiration
of the devil, not to leave his wife, even while she was asleep, should
know how to sleep in the very best style; but do not forget to reckon
among the sciences necessary to a man on setting up an establishment,
the art of sleeping with elegance. Moreover, we will place here as a
corollary to Axiom XXV of our Marriage Catechism the two following
aphorisms:

A husband should sleep as lightly as a watch-dog, so as never to
be caught with his eyes shut.

A man should accustom himself from childhood to go to bed
bareheaded.

Certain poets discern in modesty, in the alleged mysteries of love,
some reason why the married couple should share the same bed; but the
fact must be recognized that if primitive men sought the shade of
caverns, the mossy couch of deep ravines, the flinty roof of grottoes
to protect his pleasure, it was because the delight of love left him
without defence against his enemies. No, it is not more natural to lay
two heads upon the same pillow, than it is reasonable to tie a