uests: you thus make replies which bring you back such inquiries
as: "Why, what are you thinking of?" For you have lost the thread of
the discourse, and you fidget nervously with your feet, thinking to
yourself, "What is she telling her about me?"

Adolphe is dining with the Deschars: twelve persons are at table, and
Caroline is seated next to a nice young man named Ferdinand, Adolphe's
cousin. Between the first and second course, conjugal happiness is the
subject of conversation.

"There is nothing easier than for a woman to be happy," says Caroline
in reply to a woman who complains of her husband.

"Tell us your secret, madame," says M. de Fischtaminel agreeably.

"A woman has nothing to do but to meddle with nothing to consider
herself as the first servant in the house or as a slave that the
master takes care of, to have no will of her own, and never to make an
observation: thus all goes well."

This, delivered in a bitter tone and with tears in her voice, alarms
Adolphe, who looks fixedly at his wife.

"You forget, madame, the happiness of telling about one's happiness,"
he returns, darting at her a glance worthy of the tyrant in a
melodrama.

Quite satisfied with having shown herself assassinated or on the point
of being so, Caroline turns her head aside, furtively wipes away a
tear, and says:

"Happiness cannot be described!"

This incident, as they say at the Chamber, leads to nothing, but
Ferdinand looks upon his cousin as an angel about to be offered up.

Some one alludes to the frightful prevalence of inflammation of the
stomach, or to the nameless diseases of which young women die.

"Ah, too happy they!" exclaims Caroline, as if she were foretelling
the manner of her death.

Adolphe's mother-in-law comes to see her daughter. Caroline says, "My
husband's parlor:" "Your master's chamber." Everything in the house
belongs to "My husband."

"Why, what's the matter, children?" asks the mother-in-law; "you seem
to be at swords' points."

"Oh, dear me," says Adolphe, "nothing but that Caroline has had the
management of the house and didn't manage it right, that's all."

"She got into debt, I suppose?"

"Yes, dearest mamma."

"Look here, Adolphe," says the mother-in-law, after having waited to
be left alone with her son, "would you prefer to have my daughter
magnificently dressed, to have everything go on smoothly, _without its
costing you anything_?"

Imagine, if you can, the expression