But in the main we are mutually nourishing.

But presently the thought that, after all, rationally I could not care for you at all save only as for my own person's bread of life, not disinterestedly, not for your person's intrinsic beauty, and that you also could care for me only in this self-regarding way, I found desolating. Surely it debased love to triviality, and the universe to futility. There must be more to it than that.

Presently I said, "When there is real love, very much can be willingly sacrificed for the common life; and with profit to the individual, though profit is not the motive. Very much can be sacrificed, but not all, not one's life work, for instance. But much that was cherished may be gladly discarded. In love, as in religion, the primitive, self-absorbed self must be killed, that anew, more generous self may be born. And in love the new self is in a way a common self." He pounced on me. "Sheer superstition!" he said. "The lovers remain completely distinct individuals. There is no possibility of a common self." I answered cautiously, "They remain distinct as centres of awareness; but if indeed they love (or in so far as they love, for all lovers are also individualists), each cherishes the other without thought of profit to his own individuality. And each cherishes the little community of two. The common 'we' is felt by both to be more worthwhile than either of its members."

With asperity he said, "Oh, yes, that does happen. But the cause of this seeming altruism is simply the fact that each needs the other for self-completion. The love that is unconscious of its own basic self-regard is silly, sentimental, irrational, neurotic; like a miser caring for money itself instead of the power that money brings. Just so, the silly lover may be conditioned to love the woman herself instead of the limited enrichment that his personality derives from her. We so easily trick ourselves into irrational emotions."

Laughing, I taunted him, "Irrational emotions, apparently, are just those which seem unreasonable from the point of view of your theory that all human behaviour is at bottom self-regarding. If you would abandon your theory, you might begin to know what love is."

"Christ!" he said, fiercely cutting at the meat on his plate, "I do know what love is. I was married for love. It was good fun, too. In fact we enjoyed each other immensely. But little by little I found I was too deeply entangled with her. The common 'we' was wrapping me round with a web of subtle spider threads, and sucking the life out of me. I would soon be not myself anymore, but a mere part of that 'we.' It was a pleasant enough process, up to a point; but lethal to me, the real, hard, dynamic individual. So long as I was content to be not myself, I was happy in a drowsy, doped way. But sometimes I felt like murder; when she assumed that because I still needed a life of my own, she had failed me, and I did not love her. It was partly my work that she grudged, as something in me that she could not share. Worse, when I showed any interest in other girls, she went all tragic. But I hadn't really changed toward her. I just wanted a bit of variety and refreshment. Well, it was clear to me I must begin cutting the threads.