Infinity Promised

ONE of the duties of husband and wife is to pardon each other mutually for not giving infinity after practically promising it.

How much each of them expects from the other, from this union hoped for, guessed, discovered, known and loved! “Is it true, then, that the mystery of infinity is written upon this little forehead, which is all mine,” sighs the man with the Hindu poet Tagore. “You are half woman and half dream.”

And what a seraphim, what a dream prince and legendary hero she believes to be marrying, she whose imagination is livelier and more powerful in evoking imagery?

Ah, the sweetness of loving, the sweetness of being two to know The ineffable depths of the heart and its burning love’s glow, . . . To know all that a soul holds of power to feel, To understand the eyes‟ great force magnetic, fair, To sob softly—my forehead pressed against your hair Because I feel so small before Love which passes.

But even in the very moment of the embrace, how difficult— impossible even—to arrive at perfect unity; physical union can be achieved, but how delicate an attainment is union of souls! As an English novelist expresses it:

“The anguish of those who love is caused by their powerlessness to surmount the barrier of their individuality. Even in love we cannot escape from the eternal solitude of ourselves. We embrace without being able to be fused into one . . . We yearn to be but one and we are always two . . . We are frustrated as two birds would be who sought to be united through a pane of glass.”

Thus it is even when the two understand each other. In vain do they try to transfigure poor reality, seek to keep their idol more clearly before their vision, by closing their eyes, and by renewing marks of affection compensate for the infirmity of nature present in their very efforts at mutual tenderness; it still remains true that they always desire more than they possess; of what import is it that their substances intermingle if their consciences remain separated?

And what about those who only half understand each other or do not understand each other at all? Not only is their intimacy no mutual exchange, but their very cohabitation accentuates their isolation all the more. The poet, Anna de Noailles, who was unhappy in her married life, expressed this idea when she said, “I am alone with someone.”

It is a suffering for two who do not love each other to be together; it is a suffering to be together if they do love each other, because they never know if they embrace all they really believe they embrace. Berdyaev, the author of *“The Destiny of Man,” *expresses this suffering of love when he says, “If unreciprocated love is tragic, reciprocated love is perhaps even more so.”

How incorrect to think that there is no matter for renunciation in marriage!