, he was not her
own husband. At this juncture, her husband meditated the cutting of some
dog's tail, in order to renew, if possible, his lease of happiness. His
wife had conducted herself with such tact, that it would have been very
embarrassing to forbid her lover the house, for she had discovered some
slight tie of relationship between them. The danger became, day by day,
more imminent. The scent of the Minotaur was all around. One evening the
husband felt himself plunged into a mood of deep vexation so acute as
to be apparent to his wife. His wife had begun to show him more kindness
than she had ever exhibited, even during the honeymoon; and hence
question after question racked his mind. On her part a dead silence
reigned. The anxious questionings of his mind were redoubled; his
suspicions burst forth, and he was seized with forebodings of future
calamity! Now, on this occasion, he deftly applied a Japanese blister,
which burned as fiercely as an _auto-da-fe_ of the year 1600. At
first his wife employed a thousand stratagems to discover whether the
annoyance of her husband was caused by the presence of her lover; it
was her first intrigue and she displayed a thousand artifices in it. Her
imagination was aroused; it was no longer taken up with her lover; had
she not better, first of all, probe her husband's secret?

One evening the husband, moved by the desire to confide in his loving
helpmeet all his troubles, informed her that their whole fortune was
lost. They would have to give up their carriage, their box at the
theatre, balls, parties, even Paris itself; perhaps, by living on their
estate in the country a year or two, they might retrieve all! Appealing
to the imagination of his wife, he told her how he pitied her for her
attachment to a man who was indeed deeply in love with her, but was now
without fortune; he tore his hair, and his wife was compelled in honor
to be deeply moved; then in this first excitement of their conjugal
disturbance he took her off to his estate. Then followed scarifications,
mustard plaster upon mustard plaster, and the tails of fresh dogs were
cut: he caused a Gothic wing to be built to the chateau; madame
altered the park ten time over in order to have fountains and lakes
and variations in the grounds; finally, the husband in the midst of her
labors did not forget his own, which consisted in providing her with
interesting reading, and launching upon her delicate attentions, etc.
Notic