Читать книгу Anthology of Black Humor - André Breton - Страница 25

In the cuckolded world, we may distinguish nine degrees of Cuckoldry, either among men or among women, for women are much more frequently cuckolded than men; and if the man wears horns that rise as high as stag’s antlers, we can say that the woman’s rise to the height of tree branches.

I will limit myself to citing the three most distinct classes; namely, the Cuckold proper, the Short-Horn, and the Long-Horn.*

1. The Cuckold, properly speaking, is honorably jealous and unaware of his disgrace, believing himself to be the sole possessor of his wife. As long as the public maintains his illusion with laudable discretion, we have no reason to mock him: can he become irritated over an offense of which he knows nothing? The ridicule is all for the seducer who cajoles and bows before the man with whom he knowingly shares his beauty.

2. The Short-Horn is a husband who has had his fill of domestic love and who, wishing to seek his love-making elsewhere, turns a blind eye to his wife’s conduct and freely leaves her to her admirers, it being understood that he will accept no child from her. Such a husband is not to be ridiculed; on the contrary, he has the right to comment on the horns of others as boldly as if he wore none himself.

3. The Long-Horn is ridiculously jealous, bothersome for his wife and quite aware of her infidelity. He is a wild man who wishes to rebel against the decrees of fate, but who, resisting clumsily, becomes an object of mockery by his useless precautions, his anger, his outbursts. When it comes to long-horns, Molière’s George Dandin is a perfect example.

…………………………………………………………………………

—from Theory of the Four Movements

* The complete table contains sixty-four types progressively distributed into classes, orders, and genera, from the cuckold in the bud to the posthumous cuckold. I have described only three types here, wishing, on this subject as on so many others, to gauge just how far I should develop this Treatise. [Fourier’s note]