The Immoralist
the truth when she said I was her all; then, "What do I do for her happiness?" I thought. "Almost all day and every day I abandon her; her every hope is in me and I neglect her!… oh, poor, poor Marceline!" My eyes filled with tears. I tried in vain to seek an excuse in my past weakness; what need had I now for so much care and attention, for so much egoism? Was I not now the stronger of the two?
The smile had left her cheeks; daybreak, though it had touched everything else with gold, suddenly showed her to me sad and pale; and perhaps the approach of morning inclined me to be anxious. "Shall I in my turn have to nurse you, fear for you, Marceline?" I inwardly cried. I shuddered, and, overflowing with love, pity and tenderness, I placed between her closed eyes the gentlest, the most loverlike, the most pious of kisses.
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