A YOUNG LADY. Oh! what a sweet man Monsieur Ferdinand is! [Her mother reproves her by a sharp nudge with her foot.] What’s the matter, mamma? HER MOTHER, _looking at her fixedly_. A young woman should not speak so, my dear, of any one but her betrothed, and Monsieur Ferdinand is not a marrying man. A LADY DRESSED RATHER LOW IN THE NECK, _to another lady dressed equally low, in a whisper_. The fact is, my dear, the moral of all this is that there are no happy couples but couples of four. A FRIEND, _whom the author was so imprudent as to consult_. Those last words are false. THE AUTHOR. Do you think so? THE FRIEND, _who has just been married_. You all of you use your ink in depreciating social life, on the pretext of enlightening us! Why, there are couples a hundred, a thousand times happier than your boasted couples of four. THE AUTHOR. Well, shall I deceive the marrying class of the population, and scratch the passage out? THE FRIEND. No, it will be taken merely as the point of a song in a vaudeville. THE AUTHOR. Yes, a method of passing truths off upon society. THE FRIEND, _who sticks to his opinion_. Such truths as are destined to be passed off upon it. THE AUTHOR, _who wants to have the last word_. Who and what is there that does not pass off, or become passe? When your wife is twenty years older, we will resume this conversation. THE FRIEND. You revenge yourself cruelly for your inability to write the history of happy homes. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Petty Troubles of Married Life, Complete, by Honore de Balzac