And Nature takes no account of moral consequences, of arbitrary conditions which we create, and which we feel obliged to maintain at any cost. - Kate Chopin

Looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of property which has suffered some damage.

The present alone was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held, that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened being demanded.

I've been seeing the waves and the white beach of Grand Isle; the quiet, grassy street of the Chênière Caminada; the old sunny fort at Grand Terre. I've been working with a little more comprehension than a machine, and still feeling like a lost soul.