ady to do anything. You entangle yourself in your laughable
ideas of dignity, honor, virtue, social order. We can't have our life
over again, so we must cram it full of pleasure. Not the smallest bitter
word has been exchanged between Caroline and me for two years past. I
have, in Caroline, a friend to whom I can tell everything, and who
would be amply able to console me in a great emergency. There is not the
slightest deceit between us, and we know perfectly well what the state
of things is. We have thus changed our duties into pleasures. We are
often happier, thus, than in that insipid season called the honey-moon.
She says to me, sometimes, "I'm out of humor, go away." The storm then
falls upon my cousin. Caroline never puts on her airs of a victim, now,
but speaks in the kindest manner of me to the whole world. In short, she
is happy in my pleasures. And as she is a scrupulously honest woman, she
is conscientious to the last degree in her use of our fortune. My house
is well kept. My wife leaves me the right to dispose of my reserve
without the slightest control on her part. That's the way of it. We have
oiled our wheels and cogs, while you, my dear Fischtaminel, have put
gravel in yours.

CHORUS, _in a parlor during a ball_. Madame Caroline is a charming
woman.

A WOMAN IN A TURBAN. Yes, she is very proper, very dignified.

A WOMAN WHO HAS SEVEN CHILDREN. Ah! she learned early how to manage her
husband.

ONE OF FERDINAND'S FRIENDS. But she loves her husband exceedingly.
Besides, Adolphe is a man of great distinction and experience.

ONE OF MADAME DE FISCHTAMINEL'S FRIENDS. He adores his wife. There's no
fuss at their house, everybody is at home there.

MONSIEUR FOULLEPOINTE. Yes, it's a very agreeable house.

A WOMAN ABOUT WHOM THERE IS A GOOD DEAL OF SCANDAL. Caroline is kind and
obliging, and never talks scandal of anybody.

A YOUNG LADY, _returning to her place after a dance_. Don't you remember
how tiresome she was when she visited the Deschars?

MADAME DE FISCHTAMINEL. Oh! She and her husband were two bundles of
briars--continually quarreling. [She goes away.]

AN ARTIST. I hear that the individual known as Deschars is getting
dissipated: he goes round town--

A WOMAN, _alarmed at the turn the conversation is taking, as her
daughter can hear_. Madame de Fischtaminel is charming, this evening.

A WOMAN OF FORTY, _without employment_. Monsieur Adolphe appears to be
as happy as his wife.

A YOUNG