"In the case of the oppressed woman, you mean? In the case of the female slave who permits the man to defray, the whole expenses of the household? These are the logical consequences of the humbug called 'the emancipation of woman.'"
Emile Augier's prophesies in the Fourchambault, with reference to the dotal system have indeed been fulfilled. The husband has become the slave of the wife. And there are plenty of men who allow themselves to be deceived to such an extent that they dig their own graves. Fools!
While the misery of my married life slowly unfolded itself, as a ribbon winds off a spool, I took advantage of my literary reputation to tilt at foolish prejudice and attack antiquated superstitions. I wrote a volume of satires. I threw a handful of pebbles at the principal charlatans of the metropolis, not forgetting the sexless women.
I was at once denounced as a writer of pamphlets. Marie was strong in her disapproval, and immediately made friends with the enemy. She was respectability personified, and complained bitterly of the misery of being tied to a scandalmonger! She lost sight of the fact that the satirist was also a famous novelist and had made a name as a playwright.
She was a saint, a martyr. She deplored the dismal prospects of her unhappy children. They would have to bear the consequences of the dishonourable actions of a father who had squandered their mother's dowry, ruined her theatrical career, ill-treated her....
One day a paragraph appeared in one of the papers stating that I was insane; a brochure, written to order and paid for in cash, spread abroad the martyrdom of Marie and her friends; not one of the absurdities which her little brain had hatched was forgotten.
She had won the game.
And as she saw me go down before my enemies, she assumed the role of the tender mother, weeping over the prodigal son. Amiable to all the world, except to me, she drew all my friends over to her side, false ones and true ones alike. Isolated, in the power of a vampire, I abandoned all attempt at defence. Could I raise my hand against the mother of my children, the woman whom I loved?
Never!
I succumbed. She surrounded me with kindness—abroad, at home she had nothing for me but contempt and insults.