He had never repented of marrying her, in spite of
the fact that she did not always keep house as his mother and grandmother
had kept it; that she was gravely remiss in going to mass; and that she
quarrelled with more than one of her neighbours, who had an idea that
Spain was an inferior country because it was south of France, just as the
habitants regarded the United States as a low and inferior country
because it was south of Quebec. You went north towards heaven and south
towards hell, in their view; but when they went so far as to patronize or
slander Carmen, she drove her verbal stilettos home without a button; so
that on one occasion there would have been a law-suit for libel if the
Old Cure had not intervened. To Jean Jacques' credit, be it said, he took
his wife's part on this occasion, though in his heart he knew that she
was in the wrong.
He certainly was not always in the right himself. If he had been told
that he neglected his wife he would have been justly indignant. Also, it
never occurred to him that a woman did not always want to talk philosophy
or discuss the price of wheat or the cost of flour-barrels; and that for
a man to be stupidly and foolishly fond was dearer to a woman than
anything else. How should he know--yet he ought to have done so, if he
really was a philosopher--that a woman would want the cleverest man in
the world to be a boy and play the fool sometimes; that she would rather,
if she was a healthy woman, go to a circus than to a revelation of the
mysteries of the mind from an altar of culture, if her own beloved man
was with her.
Pages:
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88