Well, what then? He had absolute need of it, of a life like that, of sport and wild enjoyment; it served to balance the other thing in him, which became impossible in everyday life.
But why could he not preserve some sort of mean in both? He was perfectly well-equipped for ordinary life; and with that he possessed something in addition, something that was very beautiful in his soul: why could he not remain balanced between those two inner spheres? Why was he always tossed from one to the other, as a thing that belonged to neither? How fine he could have made his life with just the least tact, the least self-restraint! How he might have lived in a healthy delight of purified animal existence, tempered by a higher joyousness of soul! But tact, self-restraint: he had none of all this; he lived according to his impulses, always in extremes; he was incapable of half-measures. And in this lay his pride as well as his regret: his pride that he felt this or that thing “wholly,” that he was unable to compromise with his emotions; and his regret that he could not compromise and bring into harmony the elements which for ever waged war within him.
When he had met Cecile and had seen her again and yet once again, he had felt himself carried wholly to the one extreme, the summit of exaltation, of pure crystal sympathy, in which the circle of his atmosphere—as he had said—glided in sympathy over hers, in a caress of pure chastity and spirituality, as two stars, spinning closer together, might mingle their atmospheres for a moment, like breaths. What smiling happiness had not been within his reach, as it were a grace from Heaven!
Then, then he had felt himself toppling down, as if he had rocked over the balancing-point; and he had longed for earthly pleasures, for great simplicity of emotion, for primitive enjoyment of life, for flesh and blood. He now remembered how, two days after his last conversation with Cecile, he had seen Emilie Hijdrecht, here, in these very rooms, where at length, stung by his neglect, she had ventured to come to him one evening, heedless of all caution. With a line of cruelty round his mouth he recalled how she had wept at his knees, how in her jealousy she had complained against Cecile, how he had ordered her to be silent and forbidden her to pronounce Cecile’s name. Then, their mad embrace, an embrace of cruelty: cruelty on her part against the man whom time after time she lost when she thought him secured for good, whom she could not understand and to whom she clung with all the violence of her brutal passion, a purely animal passion of primitive times; cruelty on his part against the woman he despised, while in his passion he almost stifled her in his embrace.
2
Yes, what then? How was he to find the mean between the two poles of his nature? He shrugged his shoulders. He knew that he could never find it. He lacked some quality, or a certain power, necessary to find it. He could do nothing but allow himself to swing to and fro. Very well then: he would let himself swing; there was no help for it. For now, in the lassitude following his outburst of savagery, he began to experience again a violent longing, like one who, after a long evening passed in a ball-room heavy with the foul air of gaslight and the stifling closeness and mustiness of human breath, craves a high heaven and width of atmosphere: a violent longing for Cecile. And he smiled, glad that he knew her, that he was able to go to her, that it was now his privilege to enter into the chaste sanctuary of her environment, as into a temple; he smiled, glad that he felt his longing and proud of it, exalting himself above other men. Already he tasted the pleasure of confessing to her honestly how he had lived during the last three weeks; and already he heard her voice, though he could not distinguish the words....
Jules climbed down the steps. He was disappointed that Quaerts had not followed his arranging of the weapons upon the rack and his draping of the stuffs around them. But he had quietly continued his work and, now that it was finished, he climbed down and came and sat on the floor quietly, with his head against the foot of the couch on which his friend lay thinking. Jules said never a word; he looked straight before him, a little sulkily, knowing that Quaerts was looking at him.
“Jules,” said Quaerts.
But Jules did not answer, still staring.