The Immoralist/Part 1, 8
The road from Ravello to Sorrento is so beautiful that I had no desire that morning to see anything more beautiful on earth. The sun-warmed harshness of the rocks, the air's abundance, the scents, the limpidity, all filled me with the heavenly delight of living, and with such contentment that there seemed to dwell in me nothing but a dancing joy; memories and regrets, hope and desire, future and past were alike silent; I was conscious of nothing in life but what the moment brought, but what the moment carried away.
"O joys of the body!" I exclaimed; "unerring rhythm of the muscles! health!…
I had started early that morning, ahead of Marceline, for her calmer pleasure would have cooled mine, just as her slower pace would have kept me back. She was to join me by carriage at Positano, where we were to lunch.
I was nearing Positano, when a noise of wheels, which sounded like the bass accompaniment to a curious kind of singing, made me look round abruptly. At first I could see nothing because of a turn in the road, which in that place follows the edge of the cliff; then a carriage driven at a frantic pace dashed suddenly into view; it was Marceline's. The driver was singing at the top of his voice, standing up on the box and gesticulating violently, while he ferociously whipped his frightened horse. What a brute the fellow was! He passed me so quickly that I only just had time to get out of the way and my shouts failed to make him stop.… I rushed after him, but the carriage was going too fast. I was terrified that Marceline would fling herself out of the carriage, and equally so that she would stay in it; a single jolt might have thrown her into the sea.… All of a sudden the horse fell down. Marceline jumped out and started running, but I was beside her in a moment.… The driver, as soon as he saw me, broke into horrible oaths. I was furious with the man; at his first word of abuse, I rushed at him and flung him brutally from his box. I rolled on the ground with him, but did not lose my advantage; he seemed dazed by his fall and was soon still more so by a blow on the face which I gave him, when I saw he meant to bite me. I did not let go of him, however, and pressed with my knee on his chest, while I tried to pinion his arms. I looked at his ugly face, which my fist had made still uglier; he spat, foamed, bled, swore; oh, what a horrible creature! He deserved strangling, I thought. And perhaps I should have strangled him—at any rate, I felt capable of it; and I really believe it was only the thought of the police that prevented me.
I succeeded, not without difficulty, in tying the madman up, and flung him into the carriage like a sack.
Ah! what looks, what kisses Marceline and I exchanged when it was all over. The danger had not been great; but I had had to show my strength, and that in order to protect her. At the moment I felt I could have given my life for her … and given it wholly with joy.… The horse got up. We left the drunkard at the bottom of the carriage, got on to the box together, and drove as best we could, first to Positano, and then to Sorrento.
It was that night that I first possessed Marceline.
Have you really understood or must I tell you again that I was as it were new to things of love? Perhaps it was to its novelty that our wedding night owed its grace.… For it seems to me, when I recall it, that that first night of ours was our only one, the expectation and the surprise of love added so much deliciousness to its pleasures—so sufficient is a single night for the expression of the greatest love, and so obstinately does my memory recall that night alone. It was a flashing moment that caught and mingled our souls in its laughter.… But I believe there comes a point in love, once and no more, which later on the soul seeks—yes, seeks in vain—to surpass; I believe that happiness wears out in the effort made to recapture it; that nothing is more fatal to happiest than the remembrance of happiness. Alas! I remember that night.…
Our hotel was outside the town and surrounded with gardens and orchards; a very large balcony opened out from our room and the branches of the trees brushed against it. Our wide open windows let in the dawn freely. I got up and bent tenderly over Marceline. She was asleep; she looked as though she were smiling in her sleep; my greater strength seemed to make me feel her greater delicacy and that her grace was all fragility. Tumultuous thoughts whirled in my brain. I reflected that she was telling 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.