The Immoralist/Part 1, 5

Our stay at Biskra was not to last much longer. When the February rains were over, the outburst of heat that succeeded them was too violent. After several days of drenching downpour, one morning, suddenly, I woke in an atmosphere of brilliant blue. As soon as I was up, I hurried to the highest part of the terrace. The sky, from one horizon to the other was cloudless. Mists were rising under the heat of the sun, which was already fierce; the whole oasis was smoking; in the distance could be heard the grumbling of the Oued in flood. The air was so pure and so delicious that I felt better at once. Marceline joined me; we wanted to go out, but that day the mud kept us at home.

A few days later, we went back to Lassif's orchard; the stems of the plants looked heavy, sodden and swollen with water. This African land, whose thirsty season of waiting was not then known to me, had ​lain submerged for many long days and was now awaking from its winter sleep, drunken with water, bursting with the fresh rise of sap; throughout it rang the wild laughter of an exultant spring which found an echo, a double, as it were, in my own heart. Ashour and Moktir came with us at first; I still enjoyed their slight friendship, which cost me only half a franc a day; but I soon grew tired of them; not now so weak as to need the example of their health, and no longer finding in their play the food necessary to keep my joy alive, I turned the elation of my mind and senses to Marceline. Her gladness made me realize she had been unhappy before. I excused myself like a child for having so often left her to herself, set down my odd, elusive behaviour to the score of weakness and declared that hitherto loving had been too much for me, but that henceforward, as my health grew, so would my love. I spoke truly, but no doubt I was still very weak, for it was not till more than a month later that I desired Marceline.

In the meantime, it was getting hotter every day. There was nothing to keep us at Biskra—except the charm which afterwards brought me back there. Our determination to leave was taken suddenly. In three ​hours our things were packed. The train started next morning at daybreak.

I remember that last night. The moon was nearly full; it streamed into my room by the wide open window. Marceline was, I think, asleep. I had gone to bed but could not sleep. I felt myself burning with a kind of happy fever—the fever of life itself.… I got up, dipped my hands and face in water, then, pushing open the glass doors, went out.

It was already late; not a sound; not a breath; the air itself seemed asleep. The Arab dogs which yelp all night like jackals, could only just be heard in the distance. Facing me, lay the little courtyard; the wall opposite cast a slanting band of shadow across it; the regular palm-trees, bereft of colour and life, seemed struck for ever motionless.… But in sleep there is still some palpitation of life; here, nothing seemed asleep; everything seemed dead. The calm appalled me; and suddenly there rose in me afresh the tragic realization of my life; it came upon me as though to protest, to assert itself, to bewail itself in the silence, so violent, so impetuous, so agonizing almost, that I should have cried aloud, if I could have cried like an animal. I took hold of my hand, I remember—my left hand in my right; I wanted to ​lift it to my head and I did. What for? To assure myself that I was alive and that I felt the wonder of it. I touched my forehead, my eyelids. Then a shudder seized me. A day will come, thought I, a day will come when I shall not even be strong enough to lift to my lips the very water I most thirst for.… I went in, but did not lie down again at once; I wanted to fix that night, to engrave its memory on my mind, to hold and to keep it; undecided as to what I should do, I took a book from my table—it was the Bible—and opened it at random; by stooping over it in the moonlight, I could see to read; I read Christ's words to Peter—those words, alas, which I was never to forget; "When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands…"—thou shalt stretch forth thy hands.…

The next morning at dawn, we left.