y
wives against their husbands. There are some coarse and violent men
who have been taught the tricks of women by their mistresses, in the
happy hours of their celibacy, and so flatter themselves that they are
never to be caught by this vulgar trap. But all their efforts, all
their arguments end by being vanquished before the magic of these
words: "I have a headache." If a husband complains, or ventures on a
reproach, if he tries to resist the power of this _Il buondo cani_ of
marriage, he is lost.

Imagine a young woman, voluptuously lying on a divan, her head softly
supported by a cushion, one hand hanging down; on a small table close
at hand is her glass of lime-water. Now place by her side a burly
husband. He has made five or six turns round the room; but each time
he has turned on his heels to begin his walk all over again, the
little invalid has made a slight movement of her eyebrows in a vain
attempt to remind him that the slightest noise fatigues her. At last
he musters all his courage and utters a protest against her pretended
malady, in the bold phrase:

"And have you really a headache?"

At these words the young woman slightly raises her languid head, lifts
an arm, which feebly falls back again upon her divan, raises her eyes
to the ceiling, raises all that she has power to raise; then darting
at you a leaden glance, she says in a voice of remarkable feebleness:

"Oh! What can be the matter with me? I suffer the agonies of death!
And this is all the comfort you give me! Ah! you men, it is plainly
seen that nature has not given you the task of bringing children into
the world. What egoists and tyrants you are! You take us in all the
beauty of our youth, fresh, rosy, with tapering waist, and then all is
well! When your pleasures have ruined the blooming gifts which we
received from nature, you never forgive us for having forfeited them
to you! That was all understood. You will allow us to have neither the
virtues nor the sufferings of our condition. You must needs have
children, and we pass many nights in taking care of them. But
child-bearing has ruined our health, and left behind the germs of
serious maladies.--Oh, what pain I suffer! There are few women who are
not subject to headaches; but your wife must be an exception. You even
laugh at our sufferings; that is generosity!--please don't walk about
--I should not have expected this of you!--Stop the clock; the click
of the pendulum rings in my head. Th