“Won’t you refuse?” “If your request is reasonable, I am willing—” “Ah, already—that’s a true husband’s word—if—” “Come, what is it?” “I want to learn to ride on horseback.” “Now, is it a possible thing, Caroline?” Caroline looks out of the window, and tries to wipe away a dry tear. “Listen,” resumes Adolphe; “I cannot let you go alone to the riding-school; and I cannot go with you while business gives me the annoyance it does now. What’s the matter? I think I have given you unanswerable reasons.” Adolphe foresees the hiring of a stable, the purchase of a pony, the introduction of a groom and of a servant’s horse into the establishment—in short, all the nuisance of female lionization. When a man gives a woman reasons instead of giving her what she wants —well, few men have ventured to descend into that small abyss called the heart, to test the power of the tempest that suddenly bursts forth there. “Reasons! If you want reasons, here they are!” exclaims Caroline. “I am your wife: you don’t seem to care to please me any more. And as to the expenses, you greatly overrate them, my dear.” Women have as many inflections of voice to pronounce these words, _My dear_, as the Italians have to say _Amico_. I have counted twenty-nine which express only various degrees of hatred. “Well, you’ll see,” resumes Caroline, “I shall be sick, and you will pay the apothecary and the doctor as much as the price of a horse. I shall be walled up here at home, and that’s all you want. I asked the favor of you, though I was sure of a refusal: I only wanted to know how you would go to work to give it.” “But, Caroline—” “Leave me alone at the riding-school!” she continues without listening. “Is that a reason? Can’t I go with Madame de Fischtaminel? Madame de Fischtaminel is learning to ride on horseback, and I don’t imagine that Monsieur de Fischtaminel goes with her.” “But, Caroline—” “I am delighted with your solicitude. You think a great deal of me, really. Monsieur de Fischtaminel has more confidence in his wife, than you have in yours. He does not go with her, not he! Perhaps it’s on account of this confidence that you don’t want me at the school, where I might see your goings on with the fair Fischtaminel.” Adolphe tries to hide his vexation at this torrent of words, which begins when they are still half way from home, and has no sea to empty into. When Caroline is in her room, she goes on in the same way. “You see that if reasons could restore my health or prevent me from desiring a kind of exercise pointed out by nature herself, I should not be in want of reasons, and that I know all the reasons that there are, and that I went over with the reasons before I spoke to you.”