By the way, even though Ulrich and Agatha could not get their fill of talking to one another, we cannot on those grounds accuse the bonds between them of being bonds of love. That the subject of their talk was always and in some manner concerned with love is undeniable. But what is true of all emotions applies to the emotion of love as well: its ardor expands ever more largely in words the further re­moved it still is from action; and what induced the siblings after their initial obscure and intense experiences with each other to abandon themselves to conversations, and what seemed to them at times like an enchantment, was first and foremost their not knowing how they could act. But their consequent fear of their own feelings, and the curiosity with which they explored them, peering into them from their periphery, sometimes caused the conversations to veer into shallow waters that belied the depth from which they issued.

34

DIFFICULTIES WHERE THEY ARE NOT LOOKED FOR

What about the example, as famous as it is gladly lived, of love between the proverbial “two people of the opposite sex”? It is a special case of the commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbor without knowing what kind of person he is; and a test of the relationship that exists between love and reality.

People make of each other the dolls with which they have already played in dreams of love.

And what the other person believes and thinks and actually is plays no part in this?

As long as one loves him or her, and because of one’s love, everything is enchanting; but this does not work in reverse. Never has a woman loved a man for his opinions and ideas, or a man, a woman for hers. These merely play an important supporting role. Incidentally, love fares much as anger does in this respect: If one understands without prejudice what the other person means, not only is anger disarmed, but usually, quite unexpectedly, love as well.

But isn’t it true that especially in the beginning, delight in the concordance of one’s opinions plays a major role?

When the man hears the woman’s voice, he hears himself being repeated by a marvelous sunken orchestra, and women are the most unconscious ventriloquists; they hear themselves giving the cleverest answers without a word passing their own lips. Each time, it is like a small annunciation: one person steps out of the clouds to stand by another’s side, and everything the first utters seems to the second a heavenly crown, custom-fitted to the size of her or his head! Later, of course, one feels like a drunk who has slept off his stupor.

But what of the works of love? Love’s fidelity, its sacrifices, its attentions, are they not its most beautiful proof? But works, like all mute things, are ambiguous. If one looks back on one’s life as a colorful chain of events and actions, it resembles a play of which one remembers not a single word of dialogue and all of whose scenes rather tediously have the same climaxes!