The Lover
one day,I was already old,in the entrance of a public place a man came up to me.He introduced himself and said,"I've known you for years.Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young,but I want to tell you I think you're more beautiful now than then.Rather than your face as a young woman,I prefer your face as it is now
.Ravaged.
I often think of the image only I can see now,and of which I've never spoken.It's always there,in the same silence,amazing.It's the only image of myself I like,the only one in which I recognize myself,in which I delight.
Very early in my life,it was too late.It was already too late when I was eighteen.Between eighteen and twenty-five my face took off in a new direction.I grew old at eighteen.I don't known if it's same for everyone.I've never asked. But I believe I've heard of the way time can suddenly accelerate on people when they're going through even the most youthful and highly esteemed stages of life. My ageing was very sudden.I saw it spread over my features one by one,changing the relationship between them,makeing the eyes larger,the expression sadder, the mouth more fixed,leaving great creases in the forhead. But instead of being dismayed I watched this process with the same sort of interest I might have taken in the reading of a book.And I knew I was right,that one day it would slow down and take its normal course. |
