shed after many long
discussions that in the nerves originate the most fearful torture.

But it is especially in bed that vapors play their part. There when a
woman has not a headache she has her vapors; and when she has neither
vapors nor headache, she is under the protection of the girdle of
Venus, which, as you know, is a myth.

Among the women who fight with you the battle of vapors, are some more
blonde, more delicate, more full of feeling than others, and who
possess the gift of tears. How admirably do they know how to weep!
They weep when they like, as they like and as much as they like. They
organize a system of offensive warfare which consists of manifesting
sublime resignation, and they gain victories which are all the more
brilliant, inasmuch as they remain all the time in excellent health.

Does a husband, irritated beyond all measure, at last express his
wishes to them? They regard him with an air of submission, bow their
heads and keep silence. This pantomime almost always puts a husband to
rout. In conjugal struggles of this kind, a man prefers a woman should
speak and defend herself, for then he may show elation or annoyance;
but as for these women, not a word. Their silence distresses you and
you experience a sort of remorse, like the murderer who, when he finds
his victim offers no resistance, trembles with redoubled fear. He
would prefer to slay him in self-defence. You return to the subject.
As you draw near, your wife wipes away her tears and hides her
handkerchief, so as to let you see that she has been weeping. You are
melted, you implore your little Caroline to speak, your sensibility
has been touched and you forget everything; then she sobs while she
speaks, and speaks while she sobs. This is a sort of machine
eloquence; she deafens you with her tears, with her words which come
jerked out in confusion; it is the clapper and torrent of a mill.

French women and especially Parisians possess in a marvelous degree
the secret by which such scenes are enacted, and to these scenes their
voices, their sex, their toilet, their manner give a wonderful charm.
How often do the tears upon the cheeks of these adorable actresses
give way to a piquant smile, when they see their husbands hasten to
break the silk lace, the weak fastening of their corsets, or to
restore the comb which holds together the tresses of their hair and
the bunch of golden ringlets always on the point of falling down?

But how all th