The Physiology of Marriage, part 2, page 109 by Honoré de Balzac
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hem a repentance for their crime, but could not induce them to abjure their love. The scaffold was their nuptial bed, and there they slept together in the long night of death.
MEDITATION XXI.
THE ART OF RETURNING HOME.
Finding himself incapable of controlling the boiling transports of his anxiety, many a husband makes the mistake of coming home and rushing into the presence of his wife, with the object of triumphing over her weakness, like those bulls of Spain, which, stung by the red /banderillo/, disembowel with furious horns horses, matadors, picadors, toreadors and their attendants.
But oh! to enter with a tender gentle mien, like Mascarillo, who expects a beating and becomes merry as a lark when he finds his master in a good humor! Well--that is the mark of a wise man!--
"Yes, my darling, I know that in my absence you could have behaved badly! Another in your place would have turned the house topsy-turvy, but you have only broken a pane of glass! God bless you for your considerateness. Go on in the same way and you will earn my eternal gratitude."
Such are the ideas which ought to be expressed by your face and bearing, but perhaps all the while you say to yourself:
"Probably he has been here!"
Always to bring home a pleasant face, is a rule which admits of no exception.
But the art of never leaving your house without returning when the police have revealed to you a conspiracy--to know how to return at the right time--this is the lesson which is hard to learn. In this matter everything depends upon tact and penetration. The actual events of life always transcend anything that is imaginable.
The manner of coming home is to be regulated in accordance with a number of circumstances. For example:
Lord Catesby was a man of remarkable strength. It happened one day that he was returning from a fox hunt, to which he had doubtless promised to go, with some ulterior view, for he rode towards the fence of his park at a point where, he said, he sa