"He felt that he could have stayed beyond the counter for an eternity, selling syrup and sweets, as long as that charming creature was peeping through the open door with eyes of friendly mockery, and the summer sunshine, penetrating the massed foliage of the chestnut tree in front of the window, was filling the whole room with the greenish gold of midday rays, midday shadows, and his heart was bathing in a delicious laziness, in carefree joy, in the sensation of youth, the first flush of youth."
Goodness once again! "Delicious laziness" is such a beautiful description of the summer days- the silent sun peeping through the trees, scattering light into the room...
"His soul was on fire."
"Everything within him burned, like a live coal from within a layer of ashes is suddenly brown."
"...and the trepidation of love, the first for love, cursed through his veins."
It is as if this love, this first loves, becomes part of the organism, flowing through the blood- the only thing that keeps us alive. This comparison stresses the effects of this first love.
"Now he no longer reasoned, no longer thought, calculated, or looked into the future. He had separated himself from his entire past, had bounded forward. He had broken the moorings attaching him to the dreary bank of his lonely, bachelor existence and plurged into the gay, seething, powerful torrent, caring little, not even asking where it was bearing him, or whether his frail bark would be dashed against a rock. There were no longer the gentle streams of the Uhland ballad that had so soothed him lately...these were powerful, irresistible waves. They sped on, and he with them."
I love the wonderful description here, of the drowning sensations, of something that cannot be helped. It is as if one is losing control- and caring not where the "torrent" leads, or whether one even stays alive. This irrationality cannot be explained by the rational mind, a mystery that will be forever hidden, except to the ones who take part of this torrent.
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The ending was extremely shocking...but yet it is very understandable, and makes it even more real. It reminds me of the story by Tolstoy- Walk in the Light...where something so virtuous can be so stained with the immoral, in such a crude matter... This new woman mocked the very essence of his previous infatuation, the pure love he had for the young girl. To me, it shows that this sort of "sin" towards this pure love, knows no bounds, has no rules, but to destroy what is good. A crude realization, that the good can be easily tainted- which makes it even more vile, only because of the fact that it used to be pure but is no more.
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