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We smile at lovers holding hands in the park. But we wrinkle our noses if we find them acting out their lust under
the bushes. Love receives the world’s applause. Lust is furtive,
ashamed, and embarrassed. Love pursues the good of the other, with
self-control, concern, reason, and patience. Lust pursues its own
gratification, headlong, impatient of any control, immune to reason.
Love thrives on candlelight and conversation. Lust is equally happy
in a doorway or a taxi, and its conversation is made of animal grunts
and cries. Love is individual: there is only the unique Other, the one
doted upon, the single star around whom the lover revolves. Lust
takes what comes. Lovers gaze into each others’ eyes. Lust looks
sideways, inventing deceits and stratagems and seductions, sizing up
opportunities (fig. 9). Love grows with knowledge and time, court-
ship, truth, and trust. Lust is a trail of clothing in the hallway...Living with lust is like living shackled to a lunatic.
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