And she?
She has a new lover to whom she never writes and from whom she will not receive any letters. When he complains of this strange proceeding she throws her arms round his neck and, kissing him, says:
“Is it not better, dear, to have a kiss the more and a letter the less?”
And the husband has waited a long time in vain, hoping to discover a new packet of perfumed letters, tied with a golden cord, all marked in progressive numbers, written with red ink, perhaps with blood.
CHAPTER X.
PURGATORY.
But few marriages are a hell, and fewer still enjoy the highest beatitudes of heaven; the most stand halfway between the two—that is, in purgatory. There they live without redemption, which means without any hope of mounting to heaven; but neither have they any fear of being hurled down among the fallen angels. After a more or less lengthy honeymoon they descend gradually to earth, now walking amongst nettles and thorns, now amongst the flowering beds of the garden, to remain there till death.
To describe all the forms and accidents of this conjugal purgatory would be to exhaust the human universe. It is enough for me to present some scenes taken from life, so that you can judge of the rest from these examples.