think of marriage."

At this moment Choulette appeared, wearing the magnificent air of those
beggars of whom small towns are proud. He had played briscola with
peasants in a coffeehouse of Fiesole.

"Here is Monsieur Choulette," said Miss Bell. "He will teach what we are
to think of marriage. I am inclined to listen to him as to an oracle.
He does not see the things that we see, and he sees things that we do not
see. Monsieur Choulette, what do you think of marriage?"

He took a seat and lifted in the air a Socratic finger:

"Are you speaking, Mademoiselle, of the solemn union between man and
woman? In this sense, marriage is a sacrament. But sometimes, alas!
it is almost a sacrilege. As for civil marriage, it is a formality.
The importance given to it in our society is an idiotic thing which would
have made the women of other times laugh. We owe this prejudice, like
many others, to the bourgeois, to the mad performances of a lot of
financiers which have been called the Revolution, and which seem
admirable to those that have profited by it. Civil marriage is,
in reality, only registry, like many others which the State exacts in
order to be sure of the condition of persons: in every well organized
state everybody must be indexed. Morally, this registry in a big ledger
has not even the virtue of inducing a wife to take a lover. Who ever
thinks of betraying an oath taken before a mayor? In order to find joy
in adultery, one must be pious."

"But, Monsieur," said Therese, "we were married at the church."