"That, my boy, is a woman who all unconsciously will work great havoc
in contemporary literature," said Etienne, when they came away. "Poor
Vernou cannot forgive us for his wife. He ought to be relieved of her
in the interests of the public; and a deluge of blood-thirsty reviews
and stinging sarcasms against successful men of every sort would be
averted. What is to become of a man with such a wife and that pair of
abominable brats? Have you seen Rigaudin in Picard's _La Maison en
Loterie_? You have? Well, like Rigaudin, Vernou will not fight himself,
but he will set others fighting; he would give an eye to put out both
eyes in the head of the best friend he has. You will see him using the
bodies of the slain for a stepping-stone, rejoicing over every one's
misfortunes, attacking princes, dukes, marquises, and nobles, because
he himself is a commoner; reviling the work of unmarried men because
he forsooth has a wife; and everlastingly preaching morality, the joys
of domestic life, and the duties of the citizen. In short, this very
moral critic will spare no one, not even infants of tender age. He
lives in the Rue Mandar with a wife who might be the _Mamamouchi_ of the
_Bourgeois gentilhomme_ and a couple of little Vernous as ugly as sin.
He tries to sneer at the Faubourg Saint-Germain, where he will never
set foot, and makes his duchesses talk like his wife.
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