卡·麥卡勒斯/Carson McCullers
First of all,love is a joint experience between two persons-but th e fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience of the two people involved.There are the lover and the belov ed,but these two come from different countries.Often the beloved is on ly a stimulus for all the stored-up love which has lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto.And somehow every lover knows this.He f eels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing.He comes to know a n ew,strange loneliness and it is this knowledge which makes him suffer.So there is only one thing for the lover to do.He must house his love w ithin himself as best he can;he must create for himself a whole new inw ard world-a world intense and strange,complete in himself.Let it be a dded here that this lover about whom we speak need not necessarily be a young man saving for a wedding ring-this lover can be man,woman,child,or indeed any human creature on this earth.
Now,the beloved can also be of any description.The most outlandish people can be the stimulus for love.A man may be a doddering great-gran dfather and still love only a strange girl he saw in the streets of Chee haw one afternoon two decades past.The preacher may love a fallen woman.The beloved may be treacherous,greasy-headed,and given to evil habit s.Yes,and the lover may see this as clearly as anyone else-but that d oes not affect the evolution of his love one whit.A most mediocre perso n can be the object of a love which is wild,extravagant,and beautiful as the poison lilies in the swamp.A good man may be the stimulus for a love both violent and debased,or a jabbering madman may bring about in the soul of someone a tender and simple idyll.Therefore,the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.
It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be love d.Almost everyone wants to be the lover.And the curt truth is that,in a deep secret way,the state of being beloved is intolerable to many.Th e beloved fears and hates the lover,and with the best of reasons.For t he lover is forever trying to strip bare his beloved.The lover craves a ny possible relation with the be loved,even if this experience can caus e him only pain.