a
finger on her lips and he is silent. He smokes his pipes and his cigars
in a kiosk fifty feet from the chateau, and airs himself before he
returns to the house. Proud of his subjection, he turns to her, like a
bear drunk on grapes, and says, when anything is proposed, "If Madame
approves." When he comes to his wife's room, with that heavy step which
makes the tiles creak as though they were boards, and she, not wanting
him, calls out: "Don't come in!" he performs a military volte-face and
says humbly: "You will let me know when I can see you?"--in the very
tones with which he shouted to his cuirassiers on the banks of the
Danube: "Men, we must die, and die well, since there's nothing else we
can do!" I have heard him say, speaking of his wife, "Not only do I love
her, but I venerate her." When he flies into a passion which defies all
restraint and bursts all bonds, the little woman retires into her own
room and leaves him to shout. But four or five hours later she will say:
"Don't get into a passion, my dear, you might break a blood-vessel; and
besides, you hurt me." Then the lion of Essling retreats out of sight
to wipe his eyes. Sometimes he comes into the salon when she and I are
talking, and if she says: "Don't disturb us, he is reading to me," he
leaves us without a word.

It is only strong men, choleric and powerful, thunder-bolts of war,
diplomats with olympian heads, or men of genius, who can show this
utter confidence, this generous devotion to weakness, this constant
protection, this love without jealousy, this easy good humor with a
woman. Good heavens! I place the science of the countess's management
of her husband as far above the peevish, arid virtues as the satin of a
causeuse is superior to the Utrecht velvet of a dirty bourgeois sofa.

My dear fellow, I have spent six days in this delightful country-house,
and I never tire of admiring the beauties of the park, surrounded by
forests where pretty wood-paths lead beside the brooks. Nature and its
silence, these tranquil pleasures, this placid life to which she woos
me,--all attract. Ah! here is true literature; no fault of style among
the meadows. Happiness forgets all things here,--even the Debats! It has
rained all the morning; while the countess slept and Montcornet tramped
over his domain, I have compelled myself to keep my rash, imprudent
promise to write to you.

Until now, though I was born at Alencon, of an old judge and a prefect,
so they sa