"He is hard-hearted, indeed," sobbed the young wife. "He scolds me for my love, and when I like to be with him all the time, he says my jealousy is disagreeable to him, and there is nothing more abominable than a jealous wife!""Well, he may be right so far as that is concerned," said Doeninger, busily engaged in cutting his pen.
"What did you say, Cajetan?" asked Hofer, turning to him.
"I did not say anything, but thought aloud," said Doeninger, trying his pen.
Hofer was silent for a moment, and gazed into vacancy. "Yes, my dear woman," he then said boldly, "your husband may not be altogether wrong in complaining of your jealousy. I really believe that you are a little jealous, and beg you to try to overcome your jealousy; for jealousy is a grievous fault, and makes many husbands very wretched.""But must I not be jealous?" she cried, vehemently, weeping bitterly. "Do I not see that the women are trying to seduce him and make him desert me? Do I not see him at the theatre gazing at the finely-dressed ladies and admiring their bare arms and shoulders?""What!" exclaimed Hofer. "Is it true, then, that the women here appear in public with bare arms and shoulders?""Yes, sir, it is," sobbed the young wife. "You can see it everywhere; it is the new fashion which the French brought here; the women wear low-necked dresses with very short sleeves, so that their shoulders and arms are entirely bare. All the aristocratic ladies of Innspruck have already adopted this new fashion; and on seeing them in their boxes at the theatre, you would believe they were in a bath, precisely as the good God created them. And it is owing only to these bare arms and shoulders that my dear husband deserts me and loves me no longer. The aristocratic ladies, with their naked charms have seduced him; and just think of it, he wants me to adopt the new fashion too, and go as naked as the other women!""You must not do it," said Hofer in dismay; "it is a shameless, unchristian fashion, and no decent woman should adopt it. This is not the first complaint that I have heard in regard to the indecent dress of the women here. Some of my neighbors were at the theatre yesterday, and were indignant at the indecent appearance of the women there; they told me the women sat there dressed in the highest fashion, their busts entirely bare and not covered with a handkerchief such as every decent woman in the Passeyr valley wears, and their arms adorned with all sorts of golden trinkets such as we see only on those of strolling players who perform in barns. But Iwill put an end to it; I will preserve the good and virtuous men from seduction, and will not suffer vice to dress up, and shamelessness to stalk by the side of decency. Just wait, my dear woman; I will protect your husband and all other good men from the seductive wiles of frivolous women, and issue a decree which will tell all the beautiful women how to behave. Sit down there and listen to the decree which I shall dictate to Cajetan Doeninger.
Cajetan, take a large sheet of stamped paper and write what I shall dictate to you."And pacing the room. and slowly stroking his fine black beard with his right hand, Andreas Hofer dictated as follows: