“Nothing, I’m nervous.”
“I didn’t know you were subject to that.”
“O Adolphe, you won’t see anything! Look, my rings come off my fingers: you don’t love me any more—I’m a burden to you—”
She weeps, she won’t listen, she weeps afresh at every word Adolphe utters.
“Suppose you take the management of the house back again?”
“Ah!” she exclaims, rising sharply to her feet, like a spring figure in a box, “now that you’ve had enough of your experience! Thank you! Do you suppose it’s money that I want? Singular method, yours, of pouring balm upon a wounded heart. No, go away.”
“Very well, just as you like, Caroline.”
This “just as you like” is the first expression of indifference towards a wife: and Caroline sees before her an abyss towards which she had been walking of her own free will.
THE FRENCH CAMPAIGN.
The disasters of 1814 afflict every species of existence. After brilliant days of conquest, after the period during which obstacles change to triumphs, and the slightest check becomes a piece of good fortune, there comes a time when the happiest ideas turn out blunders, when courage leads to destruction, and when your very fortifications are a stumbling-block. Conjugal love, which, according to authors, is a peculiar phase of love, has, more than anything else, its French Campaign, its fatal 1814. The devil especially loves to dangle his tail in the affairs of poor desolate women, and to this Caroline has come.