There the hourless days slipped by. How many times during my solitude have I recalled those slow days! . . . Marceline next to me, reading, writing; me doing nothing, watching her. Oh, Marceline! . . . I watch: I see the sun, I see the shade, I see the edge of the shadow move. I have so little to think about that I observe it. I am still very weak, my breathing is laboured, everything tires me out, even reading. But what would I read? Simply existing is enough for me.

— André Gide, The Immoralist