. . . There can be no inequality in love. Give and take
must balance. One must be one's natural self or the whole business
is an indecent trick, a vile use of life! To use inferiors in love
one must needs talk down to them, interpret oneself in their
insufficient phrases, pretend, sentimentalize. And it is clear that
unless oneself is to be lost, one must be content to leave alone all
those people that one can reach only by sentimentalizing. But
Amanda--and yet somehow I love her for it still--could not leave any
one alone. So she was always feverishly weaving nets of false
relationship. Until her very self was forgotten. So she will go on
until the end. With Easton it had been necessary for her to key
herself to a simple exalted romanticism that was entirely insincere.
She had so accustomed herself to these poses that her innate
gestures were forgotten. She could not recover them; she could not
even reinvent them. Between us there were momentary gleams as
though presently we should be our frank former selves again. They
were never more than momentary.
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