The Course of Love. A novel pdfdrive com

The very concept of trying to “teach” a lover things feels patronizing,
incongruous, and plain sinister. If we truly loved someone, there could be no talk
of wanting him or her to change. Romanticism is clear on this score: true love
should involve an acceptance of a partner’s whole being. It is this fundamental
commitment to benevolence that makes the early months of love so moving.
Within the new relationship, our vulnerabilities are treated with generosity. Our
shyness, awkwardness, and confusion endear (as they did when we were
children) rather than generate sarcasm or complaint; the trickier sides of us are
interpreted solely through the filter of compassion.
From these moments, a beautiful yet challenging and even reckless conviction
develops: that to be properly loved must always mean being endorsed for all that
one is.
Marriage lends Rabih and Kirsten an opportunity to study each other’s
characters in exceptional detail. No one in their adult lives has ever had as much
time to examine their behavior in such a constrained habitat and under the
influence of so many variable and demanding conditions: late at night and dazed
in the morning; despondent and panicked over work, frustrated with friends, in a
rage over lost household items.
To this knowledge they bring ambition for the other’s potential. They can at
points see important qualities that are lacking but which they believe could be
developed if only they were pointed out. They know better than anyone else
some of what is wrong—and how it might change. Their relationship is, secretly
yet mutually, marked by a project of improvement.
Contrary to appearances, after the dinner party, Rabih is sincerely trying to
bring about an evolution in the personality of the wife he loves. But his chosen

---

technique is distinctive: to call Kirsten materialistic, to shout at her, and then,
later, to slam two doors.
“All you seem to care about is how much our friends are earning and how
little we have,” he exclaims bitterly to Kirsten, who is by now standing by the
sink, brushing her teeth. “Hearing you talk, anyone would think you were living
in a hovel with only bearskin pelts for clothes. I don’t want you to have this
anxiety about money anymore. You’ve become maddeningly materialistic.”
Rabih delivers his “lesson” in such a frenzied manner (the doors are slammed
very loudly indeed) not so much because he is a monster (though it would be
unsurprising if a disinterested witness were, by this point, to reach such a
conclusion) as because he is feeling both terrified and inadequate: terrified
because his wife and best friend in the world seems unable to comprehend a
pivotal point about money and its relationship to fulfillment; and inadequate
because he is incapable of providing Kirsten with what she now appears very
much to want (fairly enough, he believes deep in his heart).
He badly needs his wife to see things from his point of view, and yet has
effectively lost any ability to help her do so.
We know that, when teaching students, only the utmost care and patience will
ever work: we must never raise our voices, we have to use extraordinary tact, we
must leave plenty of time for every lesson to sink in, and we need to ensure at
least ten compliments for every one delicately inserted negative remark. Above
all, we must remain calm.
And yet the best guarantee of calm in a teacher is a relative indifference to the
success or failure of his or her lesson. The serene teacher naturally wants for
things to go well, but if an obdurate pupil flunks, say, trigonometry, it is—at