André Gide

So this woman to whom I was binding my life had a life of her own—and a real one!

Carthage and a few Roman ruins—Timgad, which Octave had told me about, the mosaics of Sousse, and above all the amphitheater of El Djem, which I

Nonetheless I felt very weak, and ordered tea for both of us. And while Marceline served it, very calm, a little pale herself, smiling, a kind of irritation seized me that she had noticed nothing. Of course I knew this was unfair, I told myself that if she saw nothing it was because I had concealed it so well; all the same, despite my efforts, it grew in me like an instinct, overpowered me … Finally it became too strong and I could no longer hold out against it: almost casually, I said to her, “I spat blood last night.”

I realized that he had no hope for me. —Shall I confess, I had no reaction at all. I was exhausted. I simply let myself go. —“After all, what did life have in store for me? I worked to the end, did my duty resolutely, devotedly. The rest … what does it matter?” I thought, rather admiring my stoicism. But what did make me suffer was the ugliness of the place. “This hotel room is hideous”—and I stared around it.

Why speak of the first days? What is left of them? Their hideous memory is mute. I no longer knew who, or where, I was. All I can see, still, leaning over my bed of pain, is Marceline, my wife, my life. I know that her devoted care, that her love and nothing else, saved me. And one day, finally, like a shipwrecked sailor catching sight of land, I felt a glimmer of life awakening; I could smile at Marceline. Why tell all this? What matters is that death had brushed me, as the saying goes, with its wing. What matters is that merely being alive became quite amazing for me, and that the daylight acquired an unhoped-for radiance. Till now, I would think, I never realized that I was alive. Now I would make the thrilling discovery of life.

I have great difficulty breathing; everything tires me, even reading; besides, what should I read? Being is occupation enough.

I staggered on a few steps. I was horribly upset, trembling with fear and rage. For up till now I had thought my recovery would simply happen, step by step; all I needed to do was wait. This brutal accident was a step backward. Strangely enough, the first hemorrhages had not affected me; I remembered how they had left me almost serene. Then what was causing my horror, my fear now? The fact that I was beginning, alas, to love life.

I turned back, bent down, took a straw and raising the clot of spittle, laid it on my handkerchief. I stared at it. The blood was ugly, blackish—something slimy, hideous. I thought of Bachir’s beautiful, quick-flowing blood. And suddenly I was seized by a desire, a craving, something wilder, more imperious than I had ever felt before: to live! I wanted to live. I clenched my teeth, my fists, concentrated my whole being hopelessly, furiously in this thirst for existence.

I had read the letter carelessly, the pamphlets not at all; first of all because of their resemblance to the little moralizing tracts which had crammed my childhood; second because any advice whatever irritated me; and finally because I did not believe that “Instructions to Tuberculosis Sufferers” or “A Practical Cure for Tuberculosis” could apply to my case. I did not believe I was tubercular. I preferred to attribute my first hemoptysis to a different cause; or rather, as a matter of fact, to no cause at all—I avoided thinking about it, dismissed it from my mind,

I had to struggle against everything: my salvation depended on no one but myself.

soon came was a tall boy of fourteen, black as a Sudanese, not at all shy, who volunteered his services. His name was Ashour. If he had not been blind in one eye, I should have found him handsome. He enjoyed chatting, explained where the stream’s source was, and how beyond the park it flowed through the entire oasis. I listened to him, forgetting my exhaustion. Attractive though Bachir seemed to me, I knew him too well by now, and I was pleased by the change. In fact I resolved to come down to the park alone another day and to await, on one of the benches, the fortune of further encounters.