I knew that people said love should be unconditional, given like a dog gives to its master, but what Being could give that way? What could love though it had been kicked and beaten? What could go kissing the hand of its tormentor with upturned eyes? I didn't know. Perhaps Jesus, perhaps the Dalai Lama, but I couldn't. I had a condition, the way life has conditions to live, the body must have certain conditions to grow, and Cristien had to meet mine or I could not live. I could not.
