Adolphe is dining with the Deschars: twelve persons are at table, and Caroline is seated next to a nice young man named Ferdinand, Adolphe’s cousin. Between the first and second course, conjugal happiness is the subject of conversation.
“There is nothing easier than for a woman to be happy,” says Caroline in reply to a woman who complains of her husband.
“Tell us your secret, madame,” says M. de Fischtaminel agreeably.
“A woman has nothing to do but to meddle with nothing to consider herself as the first servant in the house or as a slave that the master takes care of, to have no will of her own, and never to make an observation: thus all goes well.”
This, delivered in a bitter tone and with tears in her voice, alarms Adolphe, who looks fixedly at his wife.
“You forget, madame, the happiness of telling about one’s happiness,” he returns, darting at her a glance worthy of the tyrant in a melodrama.
Quite satisfied with having shown herself assassinated or on the point of being so, Caroline turns her head aside, furtively wipes away a tear, and says:
“Happiness cannot be described!”
This incident, as they say at the Chamber, leads to nothing, but Ferdinand looks upon his cousin as an angel about to be offered up.
Some one alludes to the frightful prevalence of inflammation of the stomach, or to the nameless diseases of which young women die.