insignificant in appearance and ugly; the only thing in his favor was,
he was not her own husband. At this juncture, her husband meditated
the cutting of some dog's tail, in order to renew, if possible, his
lease of happiness. His wife had conducted herself with such tact,
that it would have been very embarrassing to forbid her lover the
house, for she had discovered some slight tie of relationship between
them. The danger became, day by day, more imminent. The scent of the
Minotaur was all around. One evening the husband felt himself plunged
into a mood of deep vexation so acute as to be apparent to his wife.
His wife had begun to show him more kindness than she had ever
exhibited, even during the honeymoon; and hence question after
question racked his mind. On her part a dead silence reigned. The
anxious questionings of his mind were redoubled; his suspicions burst
forth, and he was seized with forebodings of future calamity! Now, on
this occasion, he deftly applied a Japanese blister, which burned as
fiercely as an _auto-da-fe_ of the year 1600. At first his wife
employed a thousand stratagems to discover whether the annoyance of
her husband was caused by the presence of her lover; it was her first
intrigue and she displayed a thousand artifices in it. Her imagination
was aroused; it was no longer taken up with her lover; had she not
better, first of all, probe her husband's secret?

One evening the husband, moved by the desire to confide in his loving
helpmeet all his troubles, informed her that their whole fortune was
lost. They would have to give up their carriage, their box at the
theatre, balls, parties, even Paris itself; perhaps, by living on
their estate in the country a year or two, they might retrieve all!
Appealing to the imagination of his wife, he told her how he pitied
her for her attachment to a man who was indeed deeply in love with
her, but was now without fortune; he tore his hair, and his wife was