ugh they were not vigilantly
introspective enough to find that out, and were apt to blame one
another, especially the husbands and wives, for their crossness. But it
is happily by no means true that conjugal infidelities always produce
tragic consequences, or that they need produce even the unhappiness
which they often do produce. Besides, the more momentous the
consequences, the more interesting become the impulses and imaginations
and reasonings, if any, of the people who disregard them. If I had an
opportunity of conversing with the ghost of an executed murderer, I
have no doubt he would begin to tell me eagerly about his trial, with
the names of the distinguished ladies and gentlemen who honored him
with their presence on that occasion, and then about his execution. All
of which would bore me exceedingly. I should say, "My dear sir: such
manufactured ceremonies do not interest me in the least. I know how a
man is tried, and how he is hanged. I should have had you killed in a
much less disgusting, hypocritical, and unfriendly manner if the matter
had been in my hands. What I want to know about is the murder. How did
you feel when you committed it? Why did you do it? What did you say to
yourself about it? If, like most murderers, you had not been hanged,
would you have committed other murders? Did you really dislike the
victim, or did you want his money, or did you murder a person whom you
did not dislike, and from whose death you had nothing to gain, merely
for the sake of murdering? If so, can you describe the charm to me?
Does it come upon you periodically; or is it chronic? Has curiosity
anything to do with it?" I would ply him with all manner of questions
to find out what murder is really like; and I should not be satisfied
until I had realized that I, too, might commit a murder, or else that
there is some specific quality present in a murderer and lacking in me.
And, if so, what that quality is.

In just the same way, I want the unfaithful husband or the unfaithful
wife in a farcical comedy not to bother me with their divorce cases or
the stratagems they employ to avoid a divorce case, but to tell me how
and why married couples are unfaithful. I don't want to hear the lies
they tell one another to conceal what they have done, but the truths
they tell one another when they have to face what they have done
without concealment or excuse. No doubt prudent and considerate people
conceal such adventures, when they can