PART II
RAMBLES IN MATRIMONY
CHAPTER I
ADVICE TO YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE
The great art, the great science of happiness, in matrimony especially, is never to expect of life more than it can give. Therefore, prepare your nest in such a way that the provisions will not be exhausted in a few weeks. From the very beginning, put on the brake, or the car will go too fast, and will get smashed.
Economize your caresses, rule your passions so as never to make more promises than you can keep. You cannot always work unless now and then you take a rest, a holiday; neither can you always love unless you proceed quietly and occasionally take a holiday. Be sure that a holiday is as necessary to make you enjoy blissful times as it is to make you endure hard ones.
Do not for a moment believe that happiness in matrimony can go on for ever and ever without calculation, without a great display of diplomacy on the part of both husband and wife. Avoid being too constantly the lover of your wife, because the lover-husband is such a revelation to a woman that when the day arrives—the fatal day!—on which the husband remains alone and the lover has ceased to exist, your wife will forget everything you may have done for her: your constant attentions, your assiduity to your profession or business, your forethought for her future and that for her children—all that will count for nothing when she realizes that the lover is gone.
Never allow a third person to interfere with your private affairs. Never confide your little troubles and grievances to anybody. Beware of the advising lady who would say to you: 'If I were in your place, I would not allow him to do this or to do that.' First of all, she is not in your place; secondly, she cannot be in your place, because she is neither in your heart nor in that of your husband.
You are the best judge—in fact, you are the only judge—of what is best for you to do in the presence of the many little difficulties that arise in married life. Whether you are happy or unhappy, keep the secrets of your married life to yourself; neither your happiness nor your misfortune will cause you to increase the number of your friends. Indeed, if you are perfectly happy, it is only by remaining silent about it that you will get people to forgive you your happiness.
Accept a life of abnegation and devotion. There is in devotion a bliss which is unsurpassed. Devotion is perhaps the most refined and lofty form of selfishness; it raises you so much in your own estimation! It enslaves so surely the hearts of those whom you love! Devotion is not a sacrifice; it is a halo.
If I were a woman, I would give all the pleasures of life to witness the smile of my husband on a sick-bed as I entered the room to come and sit by his side with his hand in mine. In health, the man loves to feel that he is the protector of his wife; in sickness, there is no such arbour for him as the arms of the woman he loves.