I'm terrified that I will never be able to put him from my mind. I don't love him but I'm afraid that he will make it impossible for me ever to love anyone else.

But the things is, you see, that two people can never actually become one no matter how close they are. And it would not be desirable even if it were possible. What would happen when one of them died? It would leave the other as a half a person, and that would be a dreadful thing. We must each be a whole person and therefore we each need some privacy to be alone with ourselves and our own feelings.

Life was very sad if there were not - and unbearably so if one's experience with romantic love turned one into an incurable cynic.

One day you will learn that love does not always betray you.

Why had peace given place so soon to turmoil? To two separate solitudes? Because peace had been without thought? Without...integrity?
How could she have felt like that without love?
Was love essential?
Did it even exist - the love she had dreamed of her life?
If it did, it was too late now for her to find it.
Must she make do with this instead, then?
Only this?
Pleasure without love?

Could a love of that magnitude die? If it was true love, could it ever die? Was there such a thing as true love?