(73.) Glycera[180] does not love her own sex; she hates their conversation and their visits; she gives orders to be denied to them, and often to her male friends, who are not many, whom she treats very abruptly, keeps within limits, and whom she never allows to transgress the bounds of friendship. She is absent-minded when they are present, answers them in monosyllables, and seems to seek every opportunity of getting rid of them; she dwells alone, and leads a very retired life in her own house; her gates are better guarded and her rooms are more inaccessible than those of Montauron or dʼEsmery.[181]
Only Corinna is expected and admitted at all hours, embraced several times, caressed, and addressed with bated breath, though they are alone in a small room; whatever she says is attentively listened to; complaints are poured into Corinnaʼs ears about another person; everything is told her, though nothing is new to her, for she possesses the confidence of that other person as well. Glycera is seen with another lady and two gentlemen at a ball, in the theatre, in the public gardens, on the road to Venouse,[182] where people eat fruit early in the season; sometimes alone in a sedan-chair on the way to the grand suburb,[183] where she has a splendid fruit-garden, or else at Canidiaʼs[184] door, who possesses so many rare secrets, promises second husbands to young wives, and tells them also when and under what circumstances they will obtain them. Glycera appears commonly in a low and unpretentious head-dress, in a plain morning gown, without any stays, and in slippers; she is charming in this dress, and wants nothing but a little colour. People remark, nevertheless, that she wears a splendid brooch, which she takes special care to conceal from her husbandʼs eyes. She cajoles and caresses him, and every day invents some new pretty names for him; the “dear husband” and his wife have but one bedroom, and would not sleep in any other room. The morning she spends at her toilet and in writing some urgent letters; a servant[185] enters, and speaks to her in private; it is Parmenion, her favourite, whom she upholds against his masterʼs dislike and his fellow-servantsʼ jealousy. Who, indeed, delivers a message or brings back an answer better than Parmenion? who speaks less of what should not be mentioned? who opens a private door with less noise? who is a more skilful guide up the back-stairs? or more cleverly leads a person out again the same way?
(74.) I cannot understand how a husband who gives way to his freaks and his temper, who, far from concealing his bad qualities, shows, on the contrary, only his worst, who is covetous, slovenly in his dress, abrupt in his answers, impolite, dull and taciturn, can expect to defend successfully the heart of a young wife against the attacks of a gallant who makes the most of dress, magnificence, complaisance, politeness, assiduity, presents, and flattery.[186]
(75.) A husband seldom has a rival who is not of his own making, and whom he has not introduced himself to his wife at one time or other; he is always praising him before her for his fine teeth and his handsome countenance; he encourages his civilities and allows him to visit at his house; and next to the produce of his own estate, he relishes nothing better than the game and the truffles his friend sends him. He gives a supper, and says to his guests: “Let me recommend this to you; it is sent by Leander and costs me nothing but thanks.”
(76.) A certain wife seems to have annihilated or buried her husband, for he is not so much as mentioned in this world;[187] it is doubted whether such a man be alive or dead. In his family his only use is to be a pattern of timid silence and of implicit submission. He has nothing to do with jointure or settlement; if it were not for that, and his not lying-in, one would almost take him for the wife and her for the husband. They are for months in the house together without any danger of meeting one another; in reality they are only neighbours. The master of the house pays the cook and his assistants, but the supper is always served in my ladyʼs apartment. Often they have nothing in common, neither bed, board, nor even the same name; they live in the Greek or Roman fashion; she keeps her name, and he has his; and it is only after some time, and when a man has been initiated in the tittle-tattle of the town, that at last he comes to know that Mr. B ... and Madam L ... have been man and wife these twenty years.[188]
(77.) Another wife, who does not give her husband any uneasiness on account of her disorderly behaviour, repays herself for it by worrying him about her high birth, her connections, the dowry she has brought him, her enchanting beauty, her merits, and by what some people call “her virtue.”
(78.) There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried.
(79.) Dumb and stupefied grief[189] is out of fashion; women weep, are garrulous, and so concerned about their husbandsʼ death that they do not forget to harp on every one of the details.