If a woman has been reading this story, she will probably throw it aside at this place, with the contemptuous remark that Eusebe is an absurd rustic, destitute of interest, without heart, and all that, because the poor youth did not break his glass at the breakfast at Viroflay, and exclaim,—

“You are three cowards! You insult a woman, a charming creature, who has done you no wrong, and whom I love. You have lied! You are unworthy, all three of you, to kiss the toe of her boot. You shall give me satisfaction!”

I ask pardon of the lady, but there would be no sense in the remark.

If Eusebe had used, with passionate vehemence, all these and other fine phrases, he would simply have shown himself familiar with the literature of the Boulevard (yellow-covered literature).

The language of truth and nature no longer exists. Society, lamentable to say, has adopted the favorite style of the stage. I know that the theatre professes to copy the world as it is; but it has exaggerated every thing, under the specious pretext that the simple truth will not amuse. Swelling words, violent gestures, absurd mannerisms, empty phrases, and unnatural dialogue are cherished upon the stage, and thence communicated to society. Life has become but a transcript of a drama at the “Porte Saint-Martin” or a poor copy of a comedy at the “OdÉon.”

Under the pressure of a great sorrow, the true man is always, no matter what his temperament, gloomy and bowed down. Speak not of griefs that are expressed by gesticulations, or of sorrows which are worked off in loud complaints. They are false and affected.

Our age, which has been called the age of photography, is so oppressed with mimicry that everybody mourns in the same style for the father, mother, or brother whom death has removed. Do not break forth in indignant denial, but strive to recollect. Whoever has seen one funeral has seen all. The sons weep in the same manner, wipe away their tears À la mode, walk with the same step, and lean in the same manner upon the same friend of the family. The husbands have their peculiar mode of grief. The mothers alone weep without busying themselves with what occurs on the way. Some sob a little too violently; but this happens only when the lost child was not the favorite.

I do not wish to be understood as representing that society is so positively bad,—only that it is governed by conventional comedy. Nothing is done without an accompaniment of ready-made phrases. When two men engage in a duel, they salute each other, as it is done at the theatre. If a husband finds himself the victim of a deception, he bears himself in the same style and uses the same language he has seen and heard at the theatre. Do not take your daughters to the theatre. They will never believe themselves truly loved unless they are wooed in the style of the actor Lafontaine.

Eusebe had not learned to love, to suffer, and to avenge himself according to the rules which society has borrowed from the theatre; and this is why he did not break his glass and indulge in stormy exclamations at the breakfast given at Viroflay.