An Essay in Two Voices.

I.

Imagination transfigures the image of the loved one.
The process of falling in love, Stendhal wants to persuade us,
is a process of crystallization. Perhaps you fancy lying in an orchard
looking up at the sky through the branches, how pleasant it would be
to be there with your new acquaintance. She is someone
who would share your feelings for the orchard and the sky.

But suppose now, as is highly probable, you meet
with "some coolness or slight rebuff" on the part of the person
with whom you are falling in love. Whatever the original hopes,
doubt gains a place in your feelings. Perhaps the other
is indifferent; perhaps the initial hopes were misplaced.
Perhaps under the transforming powers
of imagination, there's evidence of a positive attitude toward you.
This is what Stendhal thinks of as the "second crystallization";
and it is at this stage, he believes, that love becomes fixed.

II.

The lovers are kissing under the glare of traffic lights.
They have walked for hours along the promenade near the park
in serious deliberation. They have been having the same conversation
for a year now. But we are in a relationship, she says. I know, he
says. What will happen when you leave, she says. I'll go back to my
life. What am I? she asks. You're not my life, he says.