#extaze

"It began to grow dark; a violet dusk fell from the sky like crape falling upon crape; quietly the stars lighted up. The shadows in the garden, between the shrubs among which they sat, flowed into one another; the piano in the next villa had stopped. And happiness drew a veil between his soul and the outside world: the garden with its design of plots and paths; the villa with curtains at its windows and its iron gate; the road behind, with the rattle of carriages and trams. All this withdrew itself far back; all ordinary life retreated far from him; vanishing behind the veil, it died away. It was no dream nor conceit: reality to him was the happiness that had come while the world died away; the happiness that was rare, invisible, intangible, coming from the love which alone is sympathy, calm and without passion, the love which exists purely of itself, without further thought either of taking anything or even of giving anything, the love of the gods, which is the soul of love itself. High he felt himself: the equal of the illusion which he had of her, which she wished to be for his sake, of which he also was now absolutely certain. For he could not know that what had given him happiness—his illusion—so perfect, so crystal-clear, might cause her some sort of grief; he could not at this moment penetrate without sin into the truth of the law which insists on equilibrium, which takes away from one what it offers to another, which gives happiness and grief together; he could not know that, if happiness was with him, with her there was anguish, anguish in that she had to make a pretence and deceive him for his own sake, anguish in that she wanted what was earthly, that she craved for what was earthly, that she yearned for earthly pleasures!... And still less could he know that, notwithstanding all this, there was nevertheless voluptuousness in her anguish: that to suffer through him, to suffer for him made of her anguish all voluptuousness." Louis Couperus, Extaze. Een boek van geluk, 1892