Ah! you are the nineteenth century?
Well, what then?
And we have been as foolish as you.
Do not imagine that you have effected much change in the universe, because your trip-gallant is called the cholera-morbus, and because your pourree is called the cachuca.
In fact, the women must always be loved.
I defy you to escape from that.
These friends are our angels.
Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from which I defy you to escape; and, for my own part, I should be only too happy to re-enter it.
Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the coquette of the abyss, the Celimene of the ocean, rise in the infinite, calming all here below?
The ocean is a rough Alcestis.
Well, grumble as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile.
That brute beast submits.
We are all made so.
Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to the very ceiling.
A woman enters on the scene, a planet rises; flat on your face!
Marius was fighting six months ago; to-day he is married.
That is well.
Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right.
Exist boldly for each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a nest for life.
Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle when one is young!
Don’t imagine that you have invented that.
I, too, have had my dream, I, too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight soul.
Love is a child six thousand years old.
Love has the right to a long white beard.
Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid.
For sixty centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving.
The devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; man, who is still more cunning, took to loving woman.
In this way he does more good than the devil does him harm.
This craft was discovered in the days of the terrestrial paradise.
The invention is old, my friends, but it is perfectly new.
Profit by it.
Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to become Philemon and Baucis.
Manage so that, when you are with each other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette.
Cosette, let your fine weather be the smile of your husband; Marius, let your rain be your wife’s tears.
And let it never rain in your household.
You have filched the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not squander it, adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest.
Believe what I say to you.
It is good sense.
And good sense cannot lie.
Be a religion to each other.
Each man has his own fashion of adoring God.
Saperlotte! the best way to adore God is to love one’s wife.
I love thee! that’s my catechism.
He who loves is orthodox.
The oath of Henri IV. places sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness.
Ventre-saint-gris!
I don’t belong to the religion of that oath.
Woman is forgotten in it.
This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV.
My friends, long live women!