oman may play the part of a mistress. This rule you both
disregard.

In the first place, my child, from what you have yourself told me, it
is clear that the one unpardonable sin in society is to be happy. If
happiness exists, no one must know of it. But this is a small point.
What seems to me important is that the perfect equality which reigns
between lovers ought never to appear in the case of husband and wife,
under pain of undermining the whole fabric of society and entailing
terrible disasters. If it is painful to see a man whom nature has made a
nonentity, how much worse is the spectacle of a man of parts brought
to that position? Before very long you will have reduced Macumer to the
mere shadow of a man. He will cease to have a will and character of his
own, and become mere clay in your hands. You will have so completely
moulded him to your likeness, that your household will consist of only
one person instead of two, and that one necessarily imperfect. You will
regret it bitterly; but when at last you deign to open your eyes, the
evil will be past cure. Do what we will, women do not, and never
will, possess the qualities which are characteristic of men, and these
qualities are absolutely indispensable to family life. Already Macumer,
blinded though he is, has a dim foreshadowing of this future; he feels
himself less a man through his love. His visit to Sardinia is a proof to
me that he hopes by this temporary separation to succeed in recovering
his old self.

You never scruple to use the power which his love has placed in your
hand. Your position of vantage may be read in a gesture, a look, a tone.
Oh! darling, how truly are you the mad wanton your mother called you!
You do not question, I fancy, that I am greatly Louis' superior. Well,
I would ask you, have you ever heard me contradict him? Am I not always,
in the presence of others, the wife who respects in him the authority of
the family? Hypocrisy! you will say. Well, listen to me. It is true that
if I want to give him any advice which I think may be of use to him, I
wait for the quiet and seclusion of our bedroom to explain what I
think and wish; but, I assure you, sweetheart, that even there I never
arrogate to myself the place of mentor. If I did not remain in private
the same submissive wife that I appear to others, he would lose
confidence in himself. Dear, the good we do to others is spoilt unless
we efface ourselves so completely that those we help hav