Generally we call cruelty that which we do not have the heart to endure, while that which we endure easily, which is ordinary to us, does not seem cruel. Thus what we call cruelty is always that of others, and not being able to refrain from cruelty we deny it as soon as it is ours. Such weaknesses suppress nothing but make it a difficult task for anyone who seeks in these byways the hidden movement of the human heart.
- Georges Bataille, The Cruel Practice of Art (1949)
There’s a movie in somebody’s mind, played over and over until the lines are committed to memory. The plot gets tightened in all the right places as it is run through the brain. Everyone knows the beginning of the tale, and no one knows – perhaps, no one cares – when and how it will end. What matters in the story is the long, sustained exchanges of glances, stares, and words.
The stutters and the stammers articulate the feeling of affection; walking side by side, arm in arm, with hands clasped together can provide the image. It could be, for all intents and purposes, frozen. The tableau of two lovers perhaps kept still in a starry night, or walking off into the sunset. No one cares much for the scenery, or the camera angles, but always – certainly almost always – the focus is on the couple. How they talk, how they spend time with each other, how they get to know each other in the course of that lifetime.
Love. It is the long, extended chronicle. It is fiction, yet too many times, the movie in the mind can be ever so true.
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