But I fancy I know all your story. In
the first place, if your husband is unfaithful to you, understand
clearly that I am not his accomplice. If I was anxious to have him in
my drawing-room, it was, I own, out of vanity; he was famous, and he
went nowhere. I like you too much already to tell you all the mad
things he has done for my sake. I will only reveal one, because it may
perhaps help us to bring him back to you, and to punish him for the
audacity of his behavior to me. He will end by compromising me. I know
the world too well, my dear, to abandon myself to the discretion of a
too superior man. You should know that one may allow them to court
one, but marry them--that is a mistake! We women ought to admire men
of genius, and delight in them as a spectacle, but as to living with
them? Never.--No, no. It is like wanting to find pleasure in
inspecting the machinery of the opera instead of sitting in a box to
enjoy its brilliant illusions. But this misfortune has fallen on you,
my poor child, has it not? Well, then, you must try to arm yourself
against tyranny."
"Ah, madame, before coming in here, only seeing you as I came in, I
already detected some arts of which I had no suspicion."
"Well, come and see me sometimes, and it will not be long before you
have mastered the knowledge of these trifles, important, too, in their
way. Outward things are, to fools, half of life; and in that matter
more than one clever man is a fool, in spite of all his talent.
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