There is no remedy for time. Or, at least, we do not know what it is. But we must trust in the flow of time, we must live. The body ages because it is time, as does everything that exists on this earth. I am well aware that we have succeeded in prolonging life and youth. For Balzac the critical age for a woman began at thirty; today it begins at fifty. Many scientists believe that in the not too distant future it will be possible to avoid the ailments of old age. This optimistic prediction stands in contrast to what we know and see every day; poverty is increasing on more than half the planet, there are famines, and in the former Soviet Union, in the final years of the Communist regime, the rate of infant mortality rose. (One of the causes of the collapse of the Soviet empire.) But even if the optimists are right, we will continue to be subject to time. We are time and cannot escape its dominion. We can transfigure it but not deny it or destroy it. This is what the great artists, poets, philosophers, scientists and certain men of action have done. Love, too, is an answer: because it is time and made of time, love is at once consciousness of death and an attempt to make of the instant an eternity. All loves are ill-starred, because all are made of time, all are the fragile bond between two temporal creatures who know they are going to die. In all loves, even the most tragic, there is an instant of happiness that it is no exaggeration to call superhuman: it is a victory over time, a glimpse of the other side, of the there that is a here, where nothing changes and everything that is, truly is.

Youth is the time of love. But there are old young people incapable of love – not because of sexual impotence but from an aridity of soul. There are also young old people who fall in love – some are ridiculous, some pathetic and some sublime. But can we love a body that has grown old or been disfigured by disease? It is very difficult but not entirely impossible. We should remember that eroticism is singular and finds no anomaly contemptible. Aren’t there beautiful monsters? It is also true that we can go on loving a person despite the erosion of habit and daily life, or the ravages of old age and infirmity. In such cases physical attraction ceases and love is transformed. In general it turns not into pity but compassion, in the sense of sharing another’s suffering. When he was already an old man, Unamuno said: “I do not feel anything when I brush against the legs of my wife, but mine ache if hers do.” The word passion also means suffering, and in this way too it designates the sentiment of love. Love is suffering and heartache, because it is a lack and the desire to possess what we lack; in turn, it is happiness because it is possession, even though the possession lasts but a moment. The Diccionario de Autoridades records another word no longer in use today but one employed by Petrarch: compathía, which might be translated as shared suffering. It is a forceful expression of that sentiment of love transfigured by the old age or infirmity of the beloved.

No less sad than seeing the person we love grow old and die is the discovery that our lover is betraying us or has stopped loving us. Subject to time, change and death, love can also fall victim to boredom. Living together day after day, if lovers lack imagination, can bring the most intense love to an end. We have little power against the misfortunes that time has in store for every man and woman. Life is a continual risk; to live is to expose oneself. The hermit’s abstinence turns into a solitary delirium, the lovers’ flight into a cruel death. Other passions can seduce us and enthral us: some of them lofty, such as the love of God, of knowledge, or of a cause; others base, such as the love of money or power. In none of these passions does the risk inherent in life disappear. The mystic may discover that he has been pursuing an illusion; knowledge does not protect the wise man from the disappointment that all learning yields; power does not save the politician from betrayal by a friend. Glory is a frequently miscalculated goal, and oblivion can get the better of any reputation. The misfortunes of love are simply the adversities of life.