Some days later I again saw the seven wives in a rose garden, but not in the same one as before. It was a magnificent garden, the like of which I had never seen before. It was round, and the roses there formed a curve like that of a rainbow, the outer circle being formed by roses or flowers of a crimson color, the next inner circle by roses of a golden yellow color, the circle within this by roses of a cerulean color, and the inmost circle by roses of a prasinous or bright green color. Within this rainbow-garden was a small lake of limpid water. Sitting there, were the seven wives previously called Virgins of the Fountain. Seeing me at the window, they again called me to them; and when I came, they said, "Did you ever see anything more beautiful on earth?" I said, "Never!" They then said: "A garden such as this, is created by the Lord in a moment and it represents some new thing on earth; for everything created by the Lord represents something. Divine, if you can, as to what this garden represents? We divine that it represents the delights of conjugial love." [2] On hearing this, I said: "What! the delights of conjugial love--those delights of which, on a previous occasion, you spoke so fully both from wisdom and with eloquence? After I left you, I related your discourse to some wives dwelling in our part of the country, and said, "Having been instructed, I now know that you have bosom delights arising from your conjugial love--delights which you can impart to your husbands according to their wisdom; and that therefore, from morning to evening, you are continually looking upon your husbands with the eyes of your spirit, and studying to bend and lead their minds to becoming wise, to the end that you may secure those delights." I also told them what you mean by wisdom, namely, spiritual-rational and moral wisdom, and, as regards marriage, the wisdom to love the wife alone and to put off all concupiscence for other women. But to this, the wives of our part of the country responded with laughter, saying, "What is all this? your words are empty nothings. We do not know what conjugial love is; and if our husbands have any, still, we do not. How then can its delights be with us? As for the delights which you call ultimate, we sometimes violently refuse them, for to us they are unpleasant, being scarcely other than violations. Indeed, if you observe us, you will see no sign of such love in our faces. You are therefore trifling or jesting if you join with those seven wives in saying that we are thinking of our husbands from morning to evening, and are continually attentive to their good pleasure and their wishes, to the end that from them we may obtain such delights." From all that they said, I have retained these words that I might report them to you, since they militate against the discourse which I heard from you at the fountain and took in with such avidity, and also believed; indeed, they completely contradict it." [3] To this, the wives sitting in the garden replied: "Friend, you do not know the wisdom and prudence of wives because they entirely conceal it from men, concealing it for no other purpose than that they may be loved; for in every man who is not spiritually rational and moral but only naturally, there is coldness towards his wife, such coldness being latent with him in his inmosts. This a wise and prudent wife exquisitely and keenly observes, and in equal measure she conceals her conjugial love, withdrawing it into her bosom and there hiding it so deeply that not the least trace of it is discerned, whether in her face, the tone of her voice, or her gestures. The reason is, because in the degree that this love appears, the conjugial cold of the man pours forth from the inmosts of his mind where it resides, into his ultimates, and induces on his body total coldness and a consequent urge for separation from bed and bed-chamber." [4] To my question, "Whence comes this cold which you call conjugial cold?" they answered: "It is from their insanity in spiritual things. Every man who is insane in spiritual things is inmostly cold to his wife and inmostly warm to harlots. And because conjugial love and scortatory love are opposites, it follows that conjugial love becomes cold when scortatory love is warm; and when cold rules in a man, he cannot bear any sensation of love from his wife, and so cannot bear any breath thereof. It is for this reason that the wife so wisely and prudently conceals it, and so far as she conceals it by denying and refusing, so far the man is revived and restored by an inflowing meretricious sphere. Hence it is that the wife of such a man has no bosom delights such as we have but only pleasures, and on the man's side, these, being the pleasures of scortatory love, are to be called pleasures of insanity. [5] Every chaste wife loves her husband, even if he is unchaste; but because wisdom alone is recipient of her love, therefore the wife uses every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, that is, that he may feel desire for no other woman than herself. This she does in a thousand ways, taking the greatest care that none of them shall be discovered by the man; for she well knows that love cannot be forced but is insinuated in freedom. Wherefore, it is given to women to know from sight, hearing, and touch every state of their husbands' minds; but to husbands, on the other hand, it is not given to know any state of their wives' minds. [6] A chaste wife can look at her husband with an austere countenance, can speak to him in a sharp tone, and can also be angry with him and quarrel, and yet cherish in her heart a soothing and tender love for him. That her anger and these dissimulations have as their end wisdom and hence the reception of her love by her husband, is clearly evident from the fact that she can be reconciled in a moment. Moreover, wives have these means of concealing the love implanted in their heart and their very marrow, to the end that the conjugial cold in the man may not break forth and extinguish even the fire of his scortatory heat, and thus from green wood make him, as it were, a dry stick." [7] After the seven wives had said these words and much else of the same kind, their husbands came with clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which were of a delicious flavor and some of an offensive. The wives then said, "Why have you brought bad or wild grapes?" The husbands replied: "Because we perceived in our souls, with which yours are united, that you were speaking with this man about love truly conjugial, that its delights are delights of wisdom; and also about scortatory love, that its delights are pleasures of insanity. The latter are the grapes of offensive flavor, being wild grapes, but the former are the grapes of delicious flavor." They then confirmed the discourse of their wives and added: "Externally, but not internally, the pleasures of insanity seem the same as the delights of wisdom, just like the good and bad grapes which we brought; for externally, chaste men and unchaste have a like wisdom, but internally it is wholly unlike." [8] After this, the little boy again came with a paper in his hand and, holding it out to me, he said, "Read." I then read these words: "Know that the delights of conjugial love ascend to the highest heaven, and on the way and when there, they conjoin themselves with the delights of all heavenly loves, and thus enter into their happiness which endures to eternity. The reason is because the delights of that love are also the delights of wisdom. And know also that the pleasures of scortatory love descend even to the lowest hell, and on the way and when there, conjoin themselves with the pleasures of all infernal loves. They thus enter into their unhappiness which consists in the deprivation of all joys of the heart. The reason is because the pleasures of that love are also the pleasures of insanity." After this the husbands with their wives departed and accompanied the little boy as far as the path of his ascent into heaven. They knew the society from which he was sent, that it was a society of the new heaven with which the New Church on earth will be conjoined.