excerpt for loneliness

Ralf poured himself another whisky and, as if he were making some utterly inconsequential remark, he said:

“I need you.”

A pause. A long silence. Don’t help to break that silence, let’s see what he does next.

“I need you, Maria. Because you have a light, although I don’t really think you believe me yet, and think I’m just trying to seduce you with my words. Don’t ask me: ‘Why me? What’s so special about me?’ There isn’t anything special about you, at least, nothing I can put my finger on. And yet—and here’s the mystery of life—I can’t think of anything else.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you,” she lied.

“If I were looking for an explanation, I would say: the woman in front of me has managed to overcome suffering and to transform it into something positive, something creative, but that doesn’t explain everything.”

It was becoming difficult to escape. He went on:

“And what about me? I have my creativity, I have my paintings, which are sought after by galleries all over the world, I have realized my dream, my village thinks of me as a beloved son, my ex-wives never ask me for alimony or anything like that, I have good health, reasonable looks, everything a man could want… And yet here I am saying to a woman I met in a café and with whom I have spent one afternoon: ‘I need you.’ Do you know what loneliness is?”

“I do.”

“But you don’t know what loneliness is like when you have the chance to be with other people all the time, when you get invitations every night to parties, cocktail parties, opening nights at the theatre… when women are always ringing you up, women who love your work, who say how much they would like to have supper with you—they’re beautiful, intelligent, educated women. But something pushes you away and says: ‘Don’t go. You won’t enjoy yourself. You’ll spend the whole night trying to impress them and squander your energies proving to yourself how you can charm the whole world.’”

~ Eleven Minutes
by Pulo Coelho