What was happening was happening to us both. I believe it is always so, mutual and, at least at first, equally intense, if it is genuine involveness. The actual thing- involveness- requires something like a spark leaping back and forth from one to the other becoming more intense every moment, love building up like voltage in a coil. Here there is no sound of one hand clapping. Unreciprocated love is something else, not geniune involveness, I think: perhaps it is infatuation or a mixture of affection and sexual attraction for being in love. But when the "real thing" happens, there is no doubt. A man in the jungle at night, as someone said, may suppose a hyena's growl to be a lion's; but when he hears the lion's growl, he knows damn well it's a lion. So with the geniune involveness. A sudden glory.

a severe mercy
sheldon vanauken