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Updated: June 22, 2025
Sometimes she speaks ill of widows who marry again, before Madame Deschars who has married a third time, and on this occasion, an ex-notary, Nicolas-Jean-Jerome-Nepomucene-Ange-Marie-Victor-Joseph Deschars, a friend of your father's. In short, you are no longer yourself when you are in society with your wife.
"We are going this evening to Madame Deschars', where they never know what to do to amuse themselves; they play all sorts of forfeit games on account of a troop of young women and girls there; you shall see!" she says. You are so happy at this turn of affairs, that you hum airs and carelessly chew bits of straw and thread, while still in your shirt and drawers.
Madame Deschars bites her lips and manifests the greatest displeasure; the young women blush and drop their eyes; the little girls open theirs, nudge each other and prick up their ears. Your feet are glued to the carpet, and you have so much salt in your throat that you believe in a repetition of the event which delivered Lot from his wife.
According to the law of this innocent game you are condemned to return to the parlor after leaving a forfeit; but you are so exceedingly puzzled by your wife's answers, that you ask what the word was. "Mal," exclaims a young miss. You comprehend everything but your wife's replies: she has not played the game. Neither Madame Deschars, nor any one of the young women understand. She has cheated.
Oh! as to fruit, princes, bankers and great lords alone can eat it. Dessert is a cause of ruin. Adolphe often hears Caroline say to Madame Deschars: "How do you manage?" Conferences are held in your presence upon the proper way to keep cooks under the thumb.
Adolphe is dining with the Deschars: twelve persons are at table, and Caroline is seated next to a nice young man named Ferdinand, Adolphe's cousin. Between the first and second course, conjugal happiness is the subject of conversation. "There is nothing easier than for a woman to be happy," says Caroline in reply to a woman who complains of her husband.
"You said he was young and fair," whispers Madame Deschars. Madame Foullepointe, knowing lady that she is, boldly stares at the ceiling. A month after, Madame Foullepointe and Caroline become intimate. Adolphe, who is taken up with Madame de Fischtaminel, pays no attention to this dangerous friendship, a friendship which will bear its fruits, for pray learn this Axiom.
No elegiac poet could compete with Caroline, who utters elegy upon elegy: elegy in action, elegy in speech: her smile is elegiac, her silence is elegiac, her gestures are elegiac. Here are a few examples, wherein every household will find some of its impressions recorded: AFTER BREAKFAST. "Caroline, we go to-night to the Deschars' grand ball you know." "Yes, love."
"Little Julius Deschars came home with chilblains," she says. "But Charles has chilblains here." "Never," she replies, proudly. In a quarter of an hour, the main question is blocked by a side discussion on this point: "Has Charles had chilblains or not?" You bandy contradictory allegations; you no longer believe each other; you must appeal to a third party. Axiom.
It is an opportunity that the Deschars have seized upon, the folly of a man of letters, a charming villa upon which he lavished one hundred thousand francs and which has been sold at auction for eleven thousand. Caroline has a new dress to air, or a hat with a weeping willow plume things which a tilbury will set off to a charm. Little Charles is left with his grandmother.
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