The Immoralist/Part 1, 2
Why speak of those first days? What remains of them? Their frightful memory has no tongue. I lost all knowledge of who or where I was. I can only see Marceline, my wife, my life, bending over the bed where I lay agonizing. I know that her passionate care, her love alone, saved me. One day, at last, like a ship-wrecked mariner who catches sight of land, I felt a gleam of life revisit me; I was able to smile at Marceline. Why should I recall all this? What is important is that Death had touched me, as people say, with its wing. What is important is that I came to think it a very astonishing thing to be alive, that every day shone for me, an unhoped for light. Before, thought I, I did not understand I was alive. The thrilling discovery of life was to be mine.
The day came when I was able to get up. I was utterly enchanted by our home. It was almost nothing but a terrace. What a terrace! My room and Marceline's opened out on to it; at the further end it was continued over roofs. From the highest part, one saw palm-trees above the houses; and above the palm-trees, the desert. On the other side, the terrace adjoined the public gardens and was shaded by the branches of the nearest cassias; lastly, it ran along one side of the courtyard—a small, regular courtyard, planted regularly with six palm-trees—and came to an end with the staircase that led down to the courtyard. My room was spacious and airy; the walls were bare and whitewashed; a little door led to Marceline's room; a large door with glass panes opened on to the terrace.
There the hourless days slipped by. How often in my solitude those slow-slipping days come back to me!… Marceline sits beside me. She is reading, or sewing, or writing. I am doing nothing—just looking at her. O Marceline! Marceline!… I look. I see the sun; I see the shadow; I see the line of shadow moving; I have so little to think of that I watch it. I am still very weak; my breathing is very bad; everything tires me—even reading; besides, what should I read? Existing is occupation enough.
One morning Marceline came in laughing.
"I have brought you a friend." she said, and I saw come in behind her a little dark-complexioned Arab. His name was Bachir and he had large silent eyes that looked at me. They made me feel embarrassed, and that was enough to tire me, I said nothing, only looked cross. The child, disconcerted by the coldness of my reception, turned to Marceline and, with the coaxing grace of a little animal, nestled up against her, took her hand and kissed it, showing his bare arms as he did so. I noticed that under his thin, white gandourah and patched burnous, he was naked.
"Come, sit down there," said Marceline, who had noticed my shyness, "Amuse yourself quietly."
The little fellow sat down on the floor, took a knife and a piece of djerid wood out of the hood of his burnous, and began to slice at it. I think it was a whistle he was trying to make.
After a little time, I ceased to feel uncomfortable. I looked at him; he seemed to have forgotten where he was. His feet were bare; he had charmingly turned ankles and wrists. He handled his wretched knife with amusing dexterity.… Was this really going to interest me?… His hair was shaved Arab fashion; he wore a shabby chechia on his head with a hole in the place of the tassel. His gandourah, which had slipped down a little, showed his delicate little shoulder. I wanted to touch it. I bent down; he turned round and smiled at me. I signed to him to pass me his whistle, took it and pretended to admire it. After a time he said he must go. Marceline gave him a cake and I a penny.
The next day, for the first time, I felt dull. I seemed to be expecting something. Expecting what? I was listless, restless. At last I could resist no longer.
"Isn't Bachir coming this morning, Marceline?"
"If you like. I'll fetch him."
She left me and went out; after a little she came back alone. What kind of thing had illness made me that I should have felt inclined to cry at seeing her return without Bachir?
"It was too late," she said, "the children had come out of school and dispersed. Some of them are really charming. I think they all know me now."
"Well, at any rate, try and get him to come tomorrow."
Next morning Bachir came back. He sat down in the same way he had done two days before, took out his knife and tried to carve his bit of wood, but it was too hard for him and he finally managed to stick the blade into his thumb. I shuddered with horror, but he laughed, held out his hand for me to see the glistening cut and looked amused at the sight of his blood running. When he laughed, he showed very white teeth; he licked his cut complacently and his tongue was as pink as a cat's. Ah! how well he looked! That was what I had fallen in love with—his health. The health of that little body was a beautiful thing.
The day after he brought some marbles. He wanted to make me play. Marceline was out or she would have prevented me. I hesitated and looked at Bachir; the little fellow seized my arm, put the marbles into my hand, forced me. The attitude of stooping made me very breathless, but I tried to play all the same. Bachir's pleasure charmed me. At last, however, it was too much for me. I was in a profuse perspiration. I pushed aside the marbles and dropped into an armchair. Bachir, somewhat disturbed, looked at me.
"Ill?" said he sweetly; the quality of his voice was exquisite. Marceline came back at that moment.
"Take him away," I said, "I am tired this morning.
A few hours later I had a hemorrhage. It was while I was taking a laborious walk up and down the terrace; Marceline was busy in her room and fortunately saw nothing. My breathlessness had made me take a deeper respiration than usual and the thing had suddenly come. It had filled my mouth.… But it was no longer bright, clear blood as on the first occasion. It was a frightful great clot which I spat on to the ground in disgust.
I took a few tottering steps. I was horribly upset. I was frightened; I was angry. For up till then I had thought that, step by step, recovery was on the way, and that I had nothing to do but wait for it. This brutal accident had thrown me back. The strange thing is that the first hemorrhage had not affected me so much. I now remembered it had left me almost calm. What was the reason of my fear, my horror now? Alas! it was because I had begun to love life.
I returned on my steps, bent down, found the clot, and with a piece of straw picked it up and put it on my handkerchief. It was hideous, almost black in colour, sticky, slimy, horrible.… I thought of Bachir's beautiful, brilliant flow of blood.… And suddenly I was seized with a desire, a craving, something more furious and more imperious than I had ever felt before—to live! I want to live! I will live. I clenched my teeth, my hands, concentrated my whole being in this wild, grief-stricken endeavour after existence.
The day before, I had received a letter from T…, written in answer to Marceline's anxious enquiries; it was full of medical advice; T… had even accompanied his letter with one or two little popular medical pamphlets and a book of a more technical nature, which for that reason seemed to me more serious. I had read the letter carelessly and the printed matter not at all; in the first place I was set against the pamphlets because of their likeness to the moral tracts that used to tease me in my childhood; and then too every kind of advice was irksome to me; and besides, I did not think that Advice to Tuberculous Patients or How to Cure Tuberculosis in any way concerned me. I did not think I was tuberculous. I inclined to attribute my first hemorrhage to a different cause; or rather, to tell the truth, I did not attribute it to anything; I avoided thinking of it, hardly thought of it at all, and considered myself, if not cured altogether, at least very nearly so.… I read the letter; I devoured the book, the pamphlets. Suddenly, with shocking clearness, it became evident to me that I had not been treating myself properly. Hitherto, I had let myself live passively, trusting to the vaguest of hopes; suddenly I perceived my life was attacked—attacked in its very centre. An active host of enemies was living within me. I listened to them; I spied on them; I felt them. I should not vanquish them without a struggle … and I added half aloud, as if better to convince myself, "It is a matter of will."
I put myself in a state of hostility.
Evening was closing in; I planned my strategy. For some time to come, my recovery was to be my one and only concern; my duty was my health; I must think good, I must call right everything that was salutary to me, forget everything that did not contribute to my cure. Before the evening meal, I had decided on my measures with regard to breathing, exercise and nourishment.
We used to take our meals in a sort of little kiosk that was surrounded by the terrace on all sides. We were alone, quiet, far from everything, and the intimacy of our meals was delightful. An old negro used to bring us our food, which was tolerable, from a neighbouring hotel. Marceline superintended the menus, ordered one dish or rejected another.… Not having much appetite as a rule, I did not mind particularly when the dishes were a failure or the menu insufficient. Marceline, who was herself a small eater, did not know, did not realize that I was not taking enough food. To eat a great deal was the first of my new resolutions. I intended to put it into execution that very evening. I was not able to. We had some sort of uneatable hash, and then a bit of roast meat which was absurdly overdone.
My irritation was so great that I vented it upon Marceline and let myself go in a flood of intemperate words. I blamed her; to listen to me, it was as though she were responsible for the badness of the food. This slight delay in starting on the régime I had decided to adopt, seemed of the gravest importance; I forgot the preceding days; the failure of this one meal spoilt everything. I persisted obstinately. Marceline had to go into the town to buy a tin or a jar of anything she could find.
She soon came back with a little terrine, of which I devoured almost the whole contents, as though to prove to us both how much I was in need of more food.
That same evening we settled on the following plan: the meals were to be much better and there were to be more of them—one every three hours, beginning as early as half-past six in the morning. An abundant provision of every kind of tinned food was to supplement the deficiencies of the hotel menus.
I could not sleep that night, so excited was I by the vision of my future virtues. I was, I think, a little feverish; there was a bottle of mineral water beside me; I drank a glass, two glasses; the third time, I drank out of the bottle itself and emptied it at a draught. I strengthened my will as one strengthens one's memory by revising a lesson; I instructed my hostility, directed it against all and sundry; I was to fight with everything; my salvation depended on myself alone.
At last I saw the night begin to pale, another day had dawned.
It had been my night of vigil before the battle.
The next day was Sunday. Must I confess that so far I had paid very little attention to Marceline's religious beliefs? Either from indifference or delicacy, it seemed to me they were no business of mine; and then I did not attach much importance to them. That morning Marceline went to Mass. When she came back, she told me she had been praying for me. I looked at her fixedly and then said as gently as I could:
"You mustn't pray for me, Marceline."
"Why not?" she asked, a little troubled.
"I don't want favours."
"Do you reject the help of God?"
"He would have a right to my gratitude afterwards. It entails obligations. I don't like them."
To all appearance we were trifling, but we made no mistake as to the importance of our words.
"You will not get well all by yourself, my poor dear," she sighed.
"If so, it can't be helped." Then, seeing how unhappy she looked, I added less roughly:
"You will help me."