ht train for
Lucerne. Devote Monday and Tuesday to doing Switzerland, and get into
Rome by Thursday morning, taking the Italian lakes en route. On Friday
cross to Marseilles, and from there push along to Monte Carlo. Let her
have a flutter at the tables. Start early Saturday morning for Spain,
cross the Pyrenees on mules, and rest at Bordeaux on Sunday. Get back
to Paris on Monday (Monday is always a good day for the opera), and on
Tuesday evening you will be at home, and glad to get there. Don't give
her time to criticize you until she has got used to you. No man will
bear unprotected exposure to a young girl's eyes. The honeymoon is the
matrimonial microscope. Wobble it. Confuse it with many objects. Cloud
it with other interests. Don't sit still to be examined. Besides,
remember that a man always appears at his best when active, and a woman
at her worst. Bustle her, my dear boy, bustle her: I don't care who she
may be. Give her plenty of luggage to look after; make her catch trains.
Let her see the average husband sprawling comfortably over the railway
cushions, while his wife has to sit bolt upright in the corner left
to her. Let her hear how other men swear. Let her smell other men's
tobacco. Hurry up, and get her accustomed quickly to the sight of
mankind. Then she will be less surprised and shocked as she grows to
know you. One of the best fellows I ever knew spoilt his married life
beyond repair by a long quiet honeymoon. They went off for a month to
a lonely cottage in some heaven-forsaken spot, where never a soul came
near them, and never a thing happened but morning, afternoon, and night.
There for thirty days she overhauled him. When he yawned--and he yawned
pretty often, I guess, during that month--she thought of the size of
his mouth, and when he put his heels upon the fender she sat and brooded
upon the shape of his feet. At meal-time, not feeling hungry herself,
having nothing to do to make her hungry, she would occupy herself with
watching him eat; and at night, not feeling sleepy for the same reason,
she would lie awake and listen to his snoring. After the first day or
two he grew tired of talking nonsense, and she of listening to it (it
sounded nonsense now they could speak it aloud; they had fancied it
poetry when they had had to whisper it); and having no other subject,
as yet, of common interest, they would sit and stare in front of them
in silence. One day some trifle irritated him and he swore. On