“I confess that I shall be delighted to be allowed to frolic. And the ball is to be here also, I suppose?”
“Oh! no, my dear; the ball is to be at Madame de Pontchartrain’s; she has a superb salon, where three sets can dance a quadrille at once. Besides, it’s more proper at night to be where the bride can conveniently be put to bed!”
“What’s that? put the bride to bed? I fancy that that’s my business.”
“No, my dear; don’t you know that it’s the custom for the bride’s near relations to take her to the nuptial chamber and undress her and put her to bed?”
“You will do me the kindness to abridge all that ceremonial, which I consider utterly ridiculous, as much as you possibly can. It seems to me to be the bridegroom’s place to undress his wife and put her to bed—or to postpone putting her to bed if he and she please. They are entirely at liberty to suit themselves.”
“Oh! brother, think of what decency demands!”
“My dear girl, some people are so decent that they end by being indecent; just as some people are so bright that they end by making fools of themselves. Extremes meet; too great strictness breeds debauchery, just as extreme rigidity of morals often ends in their entire subversion. Summum jus, summa injuria. The savages who live in countries where they are not ruled by civilized man should have pure morals, since they follow the inspiration of nature; and yet that extreme purity which leads them to go naked and to conceal nothing from one another resembles a refinement of libertinage among us. Diogenes, who wanted to be a wise man, was nothing better than a fool; and Crates, who considered himself a philosopher, was simply disgusting; and how many writers there are who, by dint of trying to rise to the sublime, fall into bathos! and scholars who, while striving to be profound, are simply ludicrous! and actors who, in their efforts to be natural, appear absurd! and dancers who fall to the ground because they try to jump too high! The moral of all this is that we should seek a happy medium in everything, and that when a husband and wife have complied with the behests of the law and of religion they should be allowed to go to bed without having somebody else place them solemnly between two sheets; which, in my opinion, is better adapted to offend decency than to gratify it.”
“I am very sorry, my dear, but the custom——”
“I tell you, if I were in love with my wife, I would make short work of this custom! but let us say no more about it; I will submit to whatever you say.”
“Very well; dress yourself and come to breakfast.”