Читать книгу A Lover's Discourse - Xiaolu Guo - Страница 8

Prologue

Love at first sight is a hypnosis.

—Roland Barthes

– I don’t believe in love at first sight.

– What do you mean? Wasn’t it clear the moment you picked the elderflowers by the park and we looked at each other? Or was it in that book club?

A few years after we moved in together, we had this conversation about love at first sight. I remember you said:

‘I don’t believe in love at first sight.’

I was taken aback. I thought we were definitely in love at first sight.

‘What do you mean? Wasn’t it clear the moment you picked the elderflowers by the park and we looked at each other? Or was it in that book club?’

You gave me a damp smile, as if my confusion proved that you were right.

But doesn’t love always start from first sight? I mean, before one reaches one’s thirties or forties. It’s only when we have a second thought about our first sighted love, that we might change our mind. You might ask, why does this happen before one reaches midlife? I don’t have a theory yet, but I think when we are young, our impulses take over our mind. Romantic love is always an impulse in my case. I am not old or wise enough to understand yet what else love could be.

All I knew in that first moment at the park was that you saw the way I had looked at you. Perhaps I should not be so sure that you saw how I looked at you. Well, you were still a complete stranger. You were from a culture I had no know­ledge or deep understanding of. Besides, you were very tall and I was short. Height sometimes disorients our perspective.