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In La Vanguardia Readers' Photos we pose an enigmatic question, what is love? Perhaps, we find the answer in many passages in the history of literature. Susan Sontag, an American writer, said that nothing is mysterious, no human relationship, except love.
With the hangover from the recent celebration of the Valentine's Day holiday, I refer to some of the texts of great writers to record with their words that halo of mystery, which is implicit in this question: What is love? ..
I begin with a fragment of the novel Hopscotch, the best-known work, by Julio Cortázar. It deals with the protagonist's love affair with a Uruguayan woman.
"I touch your mouth, with a finger I touch the edge of your mouth, I draw it as if it came out of my hand, as if for the first time your mouth were half open, and I only need to close my eyes to undo everything and begin again, I make it reborn each time the mouth that I desire, the mouth that my hand chooses and draws on your face, a mouth chosen among all, with sovereign freedom, chosen by me to draw with my hand on your face, and that by a chance that I do not seek to understand coincides exactly with your mouth that smiles below the one that my hand draws you"..
This second paragraph corresponds to an essay by Octavio Paz, where he explains about love in the West, from ancient times to the present day.
"Love is one of the responses that man has invented to face death. Through love we steal from the time that kills us a few hours that we transform sometimes into paradise and other times into hell. In both ways, time It relaxes and stops being a measure. Beyond happiness or infidelity, even if it is both, love is intensity; it does not give us eternity but rather liveliness, that minute in which the doors of time and space half open. "here is there and now is always. In love everything is two and everything tends to be one (...)".
This fragment of Don Quixote is part of the monologue of the shepherdess Marcela, who refers to love and falling in love in terms that were very advanced for her time, which constitutes, without a doubt, an example of Cervantes' genius.
"Heaven made me, as you say, beautiful, and in such a way that, without being able to do anything else, you are moved by my beauty to love me; and, for the love that you show me, you say, and even want, that I be I am obliged to love you. I know, with the natural understanding that God has given me, that everything beautiful is lovable; but I do not realize that, by reason of being loved, what is loved because it is beautiful is obliged to love those who love it. And furthermore, it could happen that the lover of what is beautiful is ugly, and since what is ugly is worthy of being hated, it is very wrong to say 'Love yourself because you are beautiful; make me love you, even if I am ugly.' But, given that beauties flow equally, that does not mean that desires must flow equally, for not all beauties make one fall in love; some delight the eye and do not yield to the will; for, if all beauties fell in love and yielded, it would be a confused and misguided will. , without knowing which one they would stop at; because, since the beautiful subjects were infinite, the desires had to be infinite. And, as I have heard it said, true love is not divided, and must be voluntary, and not forced. This being so, as I believe it is, why do you want me to surrender my will by force, obligated no more than you say that you love me well?
I finish with this short story that I wrote myself and that goes beyond the fact of communicating, wanting to provide an aesthetic experience. Its title is: The darts of love pierced their hearts.
"I thought it was a recreation of those Botticelli paintings that I have stopped to look at so many times on my frequent visits to one of the Florentine art galleries. It was not an imitation of a mythical scene, it was something real. She was the nymph, that sweet and delicate woman that I found lost in the forest. Between the thickness of the trees she appeared with a white cloak. Her hair floated in the air and her breasts exuded the smell of tuberose. With her hands, she pulled him towards her and took him out of the lake where he lay, like a lover waiting to be resurrected from hell. His red eyes, like a thousand burning bonfires, looked at her, fixing his pupils on an image from which he could not get rid of. His voice, when he was able to make a sound, was brittle and sounded like an instrument that touched the evening air. Seduced by her charms, he began to move his body and, standing in front of her as if he were a titan, he led her to the Olympus of the gods. Their lips coincided, sealing with a kiss. that sequence that I had seen minutes before witnessing that meeting.
