"Thanks to you, my friend," he would say, "with my sixteen hundred francs a year, I live as if I had twice that; I spend my income in six months, and you pay my expenses the other half of the year."
Dubourg's merry humor pleased Constance, and Frédéric was always glad to see his friend, for he knew that he would never say a word to his wife that she ought not to hear, and that, despite his easy principles, he would look upon her as a sister. We can overlook some faults in the man who respects friendship. There are so many sincere, virtuous, high-minded friends, who take delight in sowing discord in families!
When Dubourg and Ménard met at Frédéric's board, which always happened toward the end of the quarter, the former tutor never failed to sing the praises of the couple who lived under his eyes.
"They are like Orpheus and Eurydice, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Philemon and Baucis, Pyramus and Thisbe!"
"Morbleu! yes," Dubourg would reply; "Frédéric has a charming wife, who has every estimable quality—a perfect treasure, in short. It would be infernally strange if he were not content."
"True enough! But if I had not inculcated in my pupil excellent principles of virtue and morality, perhaps he wouldn't lead so decorous a life as he does, although loving his wife none the less. Peter the Great adored Catherine, but that didn't interfere with his having mistresses; many princes have had concubines; and I have known some excellent husbands who slept with their maid-servants, probably from a sense of ownership."
"Don't extol Frédéric's virtue so highly, my dear Monsieur Ménard! if he had had nobody but you to guide him——"
"Perhaps you would have done it better; for instance, when you travelled with us as Baron Potoski——"
"Hush, hush, Monsieur Ménard! Let that journey be forgotten; there was nothing to choose between us. I trust that you have never spoken of that little adventure in the woods—that love affair of Frédéric's—before Madame de Montreville?"
"Oh! what do you take me for? I am well aware that it would be a great mistake now: non est hic locus; and yet, Madame de Montreville could not take offence; anything that happened before her marriage doesn't concern her; she has too much good sense not to laugh at her husband's little escapades as a bachelor."