"If this is love, if there is even the possibility that this is real love, what do you care? What will it cost you to live it out? Too much? Everything? Now that it has presented itself to you, could you dare to imagine turning away from it for anything or anyone?"
She lit a cigarette and pulled at it fiercely. She had already finished talking.
"Did it ever happen to you?" I asked.
Her cigarette was nearly a stub by the time she answered.
"Yes, I think it did happen once to me. But I was afraid the sentiments would change. I was afraid of some form of betrayal and so I walked away. I betrayed it before it could betray me. And maybe I thought life inside that intensity would suffocate me. So I chose a sort of pleasant, safe compromise, an emotion less than passion and more than tolerance. Isn't that what most of us choose?" she asked.
By Marlena de Blasi in "A Thousand Days in Venice"
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