Louis Couperus - Ecstasy

II

It was dark and late, and still they sat there.

“Shall we go for a walk?” she asked.

He hesitated, but she asked anew, “Why not, if you care to?”

And he could no longer refuse.

They rose up, and went along by the back of the house; Cecile said to the maid, whom she saw sitting sewing by the kitchen door:

“Greta, fetch me my small black hat, my black lace shawl, and a pair of gloves.”

The servant rose and went into the house. Cecile noticed how a little shyness marked itself more strongly in Quaerts’ hesitation now that they were waiting between the flower beds. She smiled, plucked a rose, and placed it in her waistband.

“Have the boys gone to bed?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, “long ago.”

The servant returned; Cecile put on the small black hat and the lace about her neck; she refused the gloves Greta offered her.

“No, not these; get me a pair of grey ones …”

The servant entered the house again, and as Cecile looked at Quaerts, she gave a little laugh.

“What is the matter?” she asked, mischievously, knowing perfectly what it was.

“Nothing, nothing!” he said, vaguely, and waited patiently until Greta returned.

Then they went through the garden gate into the woods. They walked slowly, without speaking; Cecile played with her long gloves, not putting them on.

“Really …” he began, hesitating.

“Come, what is it?”

“You know; I told you the other day; it isn’t right …”

“What?”

“What we are doing now. You risk too much.”

“Too much, with you?”

“If anyone were to see us …”

“And what then?”

He shook his head.

“You are wilful; you know very well.”

She clenched her eyes; her mouth grew serious; she pretended to be a little angry.

“Listen, you must not be anxious if I am not. I am doing no harm. Our walks are not secret; Greta at least knows about them. And, besides, I am free to do as I please.”

“It is my fault; the first time we went for a walk in the evening it was at my request”

“Then do penance and be good; come now, without scruple, at my request …” she said, with mock emphasis.

He yielded, too happy to wish to make any sacrifice to a convention which at that moment did not exist for either of them.

They walked silently. Cecile’s sensations came to her always in shocks of surprise. So it had been when Jules had grown suddenly angry with her; so also, midway on the stair, after that conversation at dinner of circles of sympathy. And now, precisely in the same way, with the shock of sudden revelation, came this new sensation – that after all she did not suffer so seriously as she had at first thought; that her agony, being voluptuousness, could not be a martyrdom; that she was happy, that Happiness had come about her in the fine air of his atmosphere, because they were together, together …

Oh, why wish for anything more, above all for things less pure? Did he not love her, and was not his love already a fact, and was it not on a sufficiently low plane now that it was an absolute fact? Did he not love her with a tenderness which feared for anything which might trouble her in the world, through her ignoring it and wandering with him alone in the dark? Did he not love her with tenderness, but also with the lustre of the divinity of his soul, calling her madonna, by this title making her – unconsciously, perhaps, in his simplicity – the equal of all that was divine in him?

Did he not love her, did he not? Why did she want more? No, no, she wanted nothing more; she was happy, she shared Happiness with him; he gave it her just as she gave it him; it was a sphere that progressed with them, as they walked together, seeking their way along the dark paths of the woods, she leaning on his arm, he leading her, for she could see nothing in the dark; which yet was not dark, but pure light of their Happiness. And so it was as if it was not evening, but day, noon; noon in the night, hour of bright light in the dusk!

III

And the darkness was light; the night dawned into Light which beamed on every side. Calmly it beamed, the Light, like one solitary sunstar, beaming with the soft lustre of purity, bright in a heaven of still, white, silver air; a heaven where they walked along milky ways of light and music; it beamed and sounded beneath their feet; it welled in seas of ether high above their heads, and beamed and sounded there, high and clear. And they were alone in their heaven, in their infinite heaven, which was all space, endless beneath them and above and around them, endless spaces of light and music, of light that was music. Their heaven measured itself on every side with blessed perspectives of white radiance, fading away in lustre and swooning landscape; oases of flowers and plants by watersides of light, still and clear and hush with peace. For its peace was the ether in which all desire is dissolved and becomes of crystal, and their life in it was the limpid existence in unruffled peace; they walked on, in heavenly sympathy of fellowship, close together, hemmed in one narrow circle, one circle of radiance which embraced them. Barely was there a recollection in them of the world which had died out in the glitter of their heaven; there was nothing in them but the ecstasy of their love, which had become their soul, as if they no longer had any soul, were only love; and when they looked about them and upon the Light, they saw that their heaven, in which their Happiness was the Light, was nothing but their love; and that the landscapes – the flowers and plants by watersides of light – were nothing but their love, and that the endless space, the eternities of lustre and music, measuring themselves out on every hand, beneath them and above and around them, were nothing but their love, which had grown into heaven and happiness.

And now they came into the very midst, to the very sun-centre, the very goal which Cecile had once foreseen, concealed in the distance, in the outbeaming of innate divinity. Up to the very goal they stepped, and all around it shot its endless rays into space, as if their Love were becoming the centre of the universe …

IV

They sat on a bench, in the dark, not knowing that it was dark, for their eyes were full of the Light. They sat against one another, silently at first, till, remembering that he had a voice and could still speak words, he said:

“I have never lived through such a moment as this. I forget where we are, and who we are, and that we are human. We have been so, have we not; I remember that we were so?”

“Yes, but now we are no longer,” she said, smiling; and her eyes, grown big, looked into the darkness that was Light.

“Once we were human, suffering and desiring, in a world where certainly much was beautiful, but much also was ugly.”

“Why speak of that now?” she asked, and her voice sounded to herself as coming from very far and low beneath her.

“I remembered it …”

“I wish to forget it.”

“Then I will also. But may I thank you in human speech that you have lifted me above humanity?”

“Have I done so?”

“Yes; may I thank you for that … on my knees?”

He knelt down and reverently took her hands. He could just distinguish the silhouette of her figure, still, seated motionless upon the bench; above them was a pearl-grey twilight of stars, between the black boughs. She felt her hands in his, and his mouth, a kiss, upon her hand. Gently she released herself; and then, with a great soul of modesty, full of desireless happiness, she very gently bent her arms about his neck, took his head against her, and kissed his forehead.

“And I, I thank you too!” she whispered, rapturously.