The first is special, new. It is remembered, more interesting to return to than the mundane, the lasting—lasting like petrified wood preserved for millennia, and yet completely dead.

It seems THE FIRST unceasingly washes over a rock until nothing is left of it. The briefer it was, and the longer it remains, the greater its power.

The story at once feels real. How it could not? We have all lived it—in those days when something awakened inside us, a force we couldn’t control and never tried to. Life had just begun to hurl forward and we dove headlong into its frantic race.

Then comes the crash—love. Love, in the narrator’s telling, so strong, so real and innocent that even envy stirs in the reader’s heart. He is forced to wonder whether he has ever felt anything like it. It feels as though he has missed something.

It was love of every kind. It took away all sleep. It constantly invented things more foolish than the last. It was love so shameful one could sink into the ground at one moment, and then love so sublime he could feel proud of it even now. Most importantly—it was unrequited love.

But you wait. You drown in dreams and hopes. You believe. Alas, you are still so young and naive. Why couldn’t you waste a little time—perhaps more—for the one you so dearly love?

Except you are not the only one. You may think it concerns only you. But here is the truth: everyone wants to love. The fight begins.

It appears easiest for those who are fought for. They can choose. Those who must fight are quickly taken for granted. They become ordinary. Sooner or later, even the fought-for begin to languish. Love spares no one.

Does it sound familiar? This book brings us back and it does very well indeed. But what does it really say? For a moment, it is not clear.

It cannot be only about love—certainly not the rosy kind. There are other forces, just as uncontrollable.

A person, no matter what he has, whom he has, and how much he has, may never fully devote himself. And there is nature—not love, but nature—to which even love must submit.

No matter the age, status, or class—who would not bow to such beauty? It has always been so. Beauty becomes everything. We allow it to torture us. We humiliate ourselves and call it virtue.

What if it were never love at all, but only suffering we believed made us worthy?

The storyteller does not ask that. He is as pure as a lily. Unfortunately, to be like him is often dangerous. For some reason, purity does not stand far from blindness. Stranger still is when that purity is taken away by the very person who helped create it—the closest one, and yet the most distant.

Nevertheless, his voice remains calm and controlled. Having lived it himself, he maintains a remarkable distance. It is precisely this kind of voice that commands respect and reminds us that we are in the presence of a remarkable person.

He does not need to shout to be seen. He simply sits and writes. The text is almost simple, easily understood, and never pretends to be what it is not. It does not embellish or romanticize, as many would be tempted to do in a story such as this. Its only aim is to reflect life truthfully.

The plot is intelligent. The characters live. And the central figure, a woman, reveals that when a man’s happiness depends on her, she ceases to be a person and becomes an object—prey—and even the smallest threat becomes intolerable to her flock of conquerors.

Before it ends, the subtle envy that crept in so imperceptibly is suddenly gone. We realize that all the familiarity we felt from the very beginning is, in fact, our own experience. It is almost beyond belief that we, too, were once capable of such deep feelings, that we could once be so innocent and pure.

We forgot. Not because of time. We forgot because of sameness, flatness, and our unwillingness to change. For if we change, whom will we love? And more importantly, who will love us? Unless… unless they change with us.

But to change is to fear. Yet without change, love cannot exist. She is forever free. Without fear or love, there is only agreement—a compromise, almost like a marriage.

Many of us self-proclaimed sages would smirk at a subject like love, especially at first love. But this story does not celebrate it. Instead, it reminds us how rare it is to find love that is mutual—and that even when we do, our deepest longings are seldom met with true understanding. Still, in the name of love, let it be as it will. In its name, one can justify anything.

But why all of this? Is there not anything more than just to love someone?

Time is so precious.

“The great thing is to lead a normal life, and not be the slave of your passions.”

The great thing is to lead your own life, and be the master of your passions.