“In reality,” he added in his rather woolly way, “I personally didn’t approve of this expedition. But it’s no good not realizing that when they get to a certain age our children escape from our control. It’s in the nature of things and there’s nothing to be done. Pauline would like to go on hanging over them for ever. She’s like all mothers. I sometimes say to her: ‘But you worry your sons to death. Leave them alone. It’s you who put things into their heads with all your questions....’ For my part I consider it does no good to watch over them too long. The important thing is that a few good principles should be inculcated into them during their early education. The important thing above all is that they should come of a good stock. Heredity, my dear friend, heredity triumphs over everything. There are certain bad lots whom nothing can improve--the predestined, we call them. Those must have a tight hand kept over them. But when one has to do with well-conditioned natures, one can let them go a bit easy.” “But you were telling me,” I insisted, “that you didn’t approve of Olivier’s being carried off in this way.” “Oh! approve ... approve!” he said with his nose in his plate, “there’s no need for my approval. There are many households, you know--and those the most united--where it isn’t always the husband who settles things. But you aren’t married; such things don’t interest you....” “Oh!” said I, laughing, “but I’m a novelist.” “Then you have no doubt remarked that it isn’t always from weakness of character that a man allows himself to be led by his wife.” “Yes,” I conceded by way of flattery, “there are strong and even dominating men whom one discovers to be of a lamb-like docility in their married life.” “And do you know why?” he went on. “Nine times out of ten, when the husband submits to his wife, it is because he has something to be forgiven him. A virtuous woman, my dear fellow, takes advantage of everything. If the man stoops for a second, there she is sitting on his shoulders. Oh! we poor husbands are sometimes greatly to be pitied. When we are young, our one wish is to have chaste wives, without a thought of how much their virtue is going to cost us.” I gazed at Molinier, sitting there with his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. The poor man little suspected how naturally his backbone fell into the stooping attitude of which he complained; he kept mopping his forehead, ate a great deal--not like a gourmet, but like a glutton--and seemed particularly to appreciate the old Burgundy which we had ordered. Happy to feel himself listened to, understood, and, no doubt he thought, approved, he overflowed in confessions. “In my capacity as magistrate,” he continued, “I have known women who only lent themselves to their husbands against the grain of their heart and senses ... and who yet are indignant when the poor wretch who has been repulsed, seeks his provender elsewhere.”