First Love by Froylan Turcios
The girl of fifteen, who had never loved before, in a scarlet evening, questioned the taciturn man about certain things of the soul. She questioned him more with her profound gaze than with her flowery lips.
«Love is a divine intoxication. It is the supreme anguish and the supreme delight. To love is to suffer, to feel within the spirit all the storms and all the joys. It is to live a fantastic life, impregnated with sadness and perfumes. It is to dream sweet things at twilight and strange things in the silent midnight. It is to constantly carry in the eyes the image of the beloved woman, and in the ear her voice, and in the whole being the glory of her charm.»
She looked at him, smiling mysteriously.
He continued:
«I do not know what a woman may think and feel, but I imagine that in you, the sensations are more subtle and deeper.»
«You speak of sadness and suffering,» she exclaimed, «and I thought that those words did not fit in love.»
«I have only referred to love without hope,» murmured the taciturn man softly. «By speaking of sadness and suffering, I have referred to love without hope. I have spoken of the emotion of loving, but not of the emotion of feeling loved.»
«So, you have never been loved?» she asked.
«I have been madly loved by white and melancholic women, by brown and passionate virgins. I have been loved by many seductive creatures. I have felt them sobbing in my arms and playing with my hair and covering me with passionate kisses. But deep in my soul, I have remained impassive, cold before their caresses.»
«Then,» said the young girl, «you have never experienced the true pleasure of feeling loved? Because if you did not love, you could not enjoy the love of others…»
«Yes, indeed, I have not enjoyed the love of others.»
«You do not know,» she said gravely, «the pleasure of being loved. Or perhaps you have not truly felt love.»
«I do not know that pleasure. That is to say, I know love now, but not the happiness of feeling loved. I would give my life for an hour of that happiness. You are the only one in the world who could give it to me.»
She did not reply.
But amidst the violet flame of twilight, he saw her tremble and grow pale.
