The Immoralist
best wines. The foreign brands we experimented on every day amused me so much that I persuaded myself she had a great fancy for them; sharp Rhine wines, almost syrupy Tokays, that filled me with their heady virtue. I remember too an extraordinary Barba-grisca, of which only one bottle was left, so that I never knew whether the others would have had the same bizarre taste.
Every day we went for a drive, first in a carriage, and later on, when the snow had fallen, in a sledge, wrapped up to our eyes in fur. I came in with glowing cheeks, hungry and then sleepy. I had not, however, given up all idea of work, and every day I found an hour or so in which to meditate on the things I felt it was my duty to say. There was no question of history now; I had long since ceased to take any interest in historical studies except as a means of psychological investigation. I have told you how I had been attracted afresh to the past when I thought I could see in it a disquieting resemblance to the present; I had actually dared to think that by questioning the dead I should be able to extort from them some secret information about life.… But now the youthful Athalaric himself might have risen from the grave to speak to me, I should not have
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