vet."

"Four hundred francs!" cries Adolphe, striking the attitude of the
apostle Thomas.

"But then there are two extra breadths and enough for a high waist!"

"Monsieur Deschars does things on a grand scale," replies Adolphe,
taking refuge in a jest.

"All men don't pay such attentions to their wives," says Caroline,
curtly.

"What attentions?"

"Why, Adolphe, thinking of extra breadths and of a waist to make the
dress good again, when it is no longer fit to be worn low in the
neck."

Adolphe says to himself, "Caroline wants a dress."

Poor man!

Some time afterward, Monsieur Deschars furnishes his wife's chamber
anew. Then he has his wife's diamonds set in the prevailing fashion.
Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allows
his wife to go out without offering her his arm.

If you bring Caroline anything, no matter what, it is never equal to
what Monsieur Deschars has done. If you allow yourself the slightest
gesture or expression a little livelier than usual, if you speak a
little bit loud, you hear the hissing and viper-like remark:

"You wouldn't see Monsieur Deschars behaving like this! Why don't you
take Monsieur Deschars for a model?"

In short, this idiotic Monsieur Deschars is forever looming up in your
household on every conceivable occasion.

The expression--"Do you suppose Monsieur Deschars ever allows himself"
--is a sword of Damocles, or what is worse, a Damocles pin: and your
self-love is the cushion into which your wife is constantly sticking
it, pulling it out, and sticking it in again, under a variety of
unforeseen pretexts, at the same time employing the most winning terms
of endearment, and with the most agreeable little ways.

Adolphe, stung till he finds himself tattooed, finally does what is
done by police authorities, by officers of government, by military
tacticians. He casts his eye on Madame de Fischtaminel, who is still
young, elegant and a little bit coquettish, and places her (this had
been the rascal's intention for some time) like a blister upon
Caroline's extremely ticklish skin.

O you, who often exclaim, "I don't know what is the matter with my
wife!" you will kiss this page of transcendent philosophy, for you
will find in it _the key to every woman's character_! But as to
knowing women as well as I know them, it will not be knowing them
much; they don't know themselves! In fact, as you well know, God was
Himself mistaken in the only one tha