_tête-à-tête_ in June, on a moonlight evening. At last the deed is done, and the poor timid lady is surprised by her outraged husband; in what a situation! Let us look again at the book. Of course she will be speechless, ashamed and full of tears, and the moral reader duly reckons on her remorse. My dear reader, you have not reckoned on impulse and nerves. To-morrow she will feel shame; the business is now to overwhelm the husband, to deafen him, to confound him, to save Juan, to save herself, to fight. The war once begun, is waged with all kinds of weapons, and chiefly with audacity and insults. The only idea is the present need, and this absorbs all others; it is in this that woman is a woman. This Julia cries lustily. It is a regular storm: hard words and recriminations, mockery and challenges, fainting and tears. In a quarter of an hour she has gained twenty years' experience. You did not know, nor she either, what an actress can emerge, all on a sudden, unforeseen, out of a simple woman. Do you know what can emerge from yourself? You think yourself rational, humane; I admit it for to-day; you have dined, and you are comfortable in a pleasant room. Your human mechanism works without getting into disorder, because the wheels are oiled and well regulated; but place it in a shipwreck, a battle, let the failing or the plethora of blood for an instant derange the chief pieces, and we shall see you howling or drivelling like a madman or an idiot. Civilization, education, reason, health, cloak us in their smooth and polished cases; let us tear them away one by one, or all together, and we laugh to see the brute, who is lying at the bottom. Here is our friend Juan reading Julia's last letter, and swearing in a transport never to forget the beautiful eyes which he caused to weep so much. Was ever feeling more tender or sincere? But unfortunately Juan is at sea, and sickness sets in. He cries out: "Sooner shall earth resolve itself to sea, Than I resign thine image, oh, my fair!... (Here the ship gave a lurch, and he grew sea-sick.)... Sooner shall heaven kiss earth--(here he fell sicker.) Oh, Julia! what is every other woe? (For God's sake let me have a glass of liquor; Pedro, Battista, help me down below.) Julia, my love!--(You rascal, Pedro, quicker)-- Oh, Julia!--(this curst vessel pitches so) Beloved Julia, hear me still beseeching! (Here he grew inarticulate with retching.)... Love's a capricious power... Against all noble maladies he's bold, But vulgar illnesses don't like to meet;... Shrinks from the application of hot towels, And purgatives are dangerous to his reign, Sea-sickness death."[223] Many other things cause the death of Love: