s.

There may have been a misunderstanding at the very beginning of their
married life, and Aurore may have had a surprise of the nature of the
one to which Jane de Simerose confesses in _L'Ami des femmes_. In an
unpublished letter written much later on, in the year 1843, from George
Sand to her half-brother Hippolyte Chatiron on the occasion of his
daughter's engagement, the following lines occur: "See that your
son-in-law is not brutal to your daughter the first night of their
marriage. . . . Men have no idea that this amusement of theirs is a
martyrdom for us. Tell him to sacrifice his own pleasure a little, and
to wait until he has taught his wife gradually to understand things
and to be willing. There is nothing so frightful as the horror, the
suffering and the disgust of a poor girl who knows nothing and who is
suddenly violated by a brute. We bring girls up as much as possible like
saints, and then we hand them over like fillies. If your son-in-law
is an intelligent man and if he really loves your daughter, he will
understand his _role_, and will not take it amiss that you should speak
to him beforehand."(2)

(2) Communicated by M. S. Rocheblave.

Is George Sand recalling here any hidden and painful memories? Casimir
had, at bottom, a certain brutality, which, later on, was very evident.
The question is whether he had shown proofs of it at a time when it
would have been wiser to have refrained.

However that may be, the fundamental disagreement of their natures was
not long in making itself felt between the husband and wife. He was
matter-of-fact, and she was romantic; he only believed in facts, and
she in ideas; he was of the earth, earthy, whilst she aspired to the
impossible. They had nothing to say to each other, and when two people
have nothing to say, and love does not fill up the silences, what
torture the daily _tete-a-tete_ must be. Before they had been married
two years, they were bored to death. They blamed Nohant, but the fault
was in themselves. Nohant seemed unbearable to them, simply because they
were there alone with each other. They went to Plessis, perhaps in the
hope that the remembrance of the days of their engagement might have
some effect on them. It was there, in 1824, that the famous scene of the
blow took place. They were playing at a regular children's game in the
park, and throwing sand at each other. Casimir lost his patience and
struck his wife. It was certainly impolite, but