Any Woman's Blues_ A Novel of Obsession - Erica Jong [41]
IX. No one can love unless he is compelled to do so by the persuasion of love.
X. Love is always wont to shun the abode of avarice.
XI. It is unseemly to love those whom one would be ashamed to marry.
XII. A true lover does not wish to enjoy the love of another than his beloved.
XIII. Love seldom lasts after it is divulged.
XIV. Love easily won becomes contemptible; love won with difficulty is held dear.
XV. Every lover is wont to turn pale at the sight of his beloved.
XVI. A lover’s heart trembles at the sudden sight of his beloved.
XVII. A new love drives away the old.
XVIII. Probity alone makes one worthy of love.
XIX. If love diminishes, it soon ends and rarely revives.
XX. A lover is always timid.
XXI. A lover’s affection is always increased by true jealousy.
XXII. A lover’s zeal and affection are increased by suspicion of the beloved.
XXIII. He eats and sleeps less whom the thought of love distresses.
XXIV. Every act of the lover is bounded by the thought of the beloved.
XXV. A true lover believes nothing good but what he thinks will please the beloved.
XXVI. Love can refuse nothing to love.
XXVII. A lover cannot tire of the favors of his beloved.
XXVIII. A slight presumption forces the lover to suspect his beloved.
XXIX. He is not wont to love who is tormented by lewdness.
XXX. A true lover dwells in the uninterrupted contemplation of the beloved.
XXXI. Nothing forbids a woman to be loved by two men, and a man by two women.
“Love always increases or diminishes,” I say aloud. “A dead lover must be mourned for two years.” I hold on to those thoughts as if they are the very pillars of my sane mind.
I run downstairs to read “The Rules of Love” to Emmie, who listens intently.
“Why do they remind you of ‘The Twelve Steps’?” she asks.
“Because human beings have this need to codify everything, even heartbreak, even despair. ‘The Rules of Love’ and ‘The Twelve Steps’ are parallel universes. They’re like floating spars to a drowning person. It’s comforting to know that others have passed that way before.”
“You mean you’re not the only stumbling human being, the only stumbling lover?” Emmie asks, not without irony. “You mean you’re allowed to be imperfect?”
“Precisely,” I say, pretending to be in my sane mind. This is one of the first principles of the Program, I have learned from Emmie: “Act as if.” Perhaps even if I cannot find my sane mind, I can pretend to have found it. And perhaps by pretending enough, I will eventually cease having to pretend.
Emmie stays with me that night and the next and the next. The first three days without booze are hard. Every day at five, I crave wine so badly I think I can’t live without it—and instead we go to a meeting and then come home and gorge on ice cream. Something seems missing in my life. The days seem three times as long as before. The house is empty without Dart, without the twins, without the ritual of drinking.
Emmie and I cart all the wine down to a storage closet in the cellar and lock it up, then bury the key somewhere in the ground near my silo.
“If you ever want to drink, you’ll have to call a locksmith,” Emmie says. “Ideally, we should throw it away—but you might have a party and need the stuff.”
“How long will it be before I stop wanting wine every day at five?”
“I think you’re like a lot of women—you drink with men.”
“And since there’s no sex in my life, I won’t need to drink, right?”
“I didn’t say there’d never be—”
“Oh, Emmie, why did I ever let you drag me to that goddamned meeting?”
“Drag you? You dragged me. You think I’d come all the way up here just for a meeting?”
On the fourth day I go to my silo and start a still life. Emmie is in the guest room, sprawled out on the water bed, reading a half-dozen books about osteoporosis while keeping a nostril and an ear out for the gallons of tomato sauce she’s making in the kitchen. The whole house smells like an Italian restaurant. The cooking smells give me comfort—as does Emmie’s presence.
Out in my silo, I set up my still life.