Lillian
by Goupil


email: levik9999@yahoo.com
 
 
She was visibly not at all over-awed by my more or less subtly implied
qualities. Any young girl would have given the world to be with me. They
would have fallen on their trembling knees to beg me to even give them
one single glance. But not Lillian. Perhaps this inaccessibility of
herself was what was drawing me more and more to her, her distant,
glacial attitude. It probably all worked in this case on the logic of you
always want what you can't have sort of statement.
I was the one who initiated the 'relationship,' though at times I start
having doubts about me having had a will at all in all this. Seems more
like I was actually subjugated by her simply by her doing nothing but
just existing. By her just sitting there in front of me. Effortless on
her side, and inevitable for me... I was trapped and she didn't even
have to move a finger to get me trapped.
I 'initiated' the relationship in the sense that I was the one who
walked to her and started talking.
I was the one who needed to see her desperately, to talk to her, to keep
this relationship from breaking away with time. She seemed not to need
me, not to miss me, she lived completely independently from me.
We had met during some Psychoanalysis courses at university. I am now 39
and she is 23. We are now in our last year, about to pass the graduation
exam. I befriended her and proposed to her to study together. I started
studying Psychoanalysis on my own some ten years ago and so I offered to
help her if she needed. We had helped each other during these four years
and were on good terms. Of course I couldn't attend all courses as I had
to go to work, so she gave me her notes.
She was a very smart student. Not the kind with stellar grades, but a
normal, hardworking one, with few failures, but really interested in what
she was studying and taking everything seriously.
So... what were we? I mean, what kind of relationship were we exactly in?
I don't know. She never asked this question, and I chose to leave things
as they were and let them evolve by themselves, without forcing anything.
Where was I hurrying, I thought. But now, as the end of the fourth and
last year was drawing so near, I began worrying: what if after this I
won't see her again? The very thought of it was unbearable to me.
Another thing about her is that she intimidates me. I would have liked to
tell her that I started loving her during all this time, but somehow I
didn't dare. I was afraid that she'd just look at me coldly and
despisingly and then never even glance at me.
That afternoon I decided to offer her an essay written by me against
Freud and psychoanalysis, emphasizing the fact that it turns human beings
into puppets without any free will left. I turned psychoanalysis into a
dangerous ideology into which Lillian had fallen unawares (but it was not
her fault) and the implication was that I was there to protect her, to
keep her away from pathologizing the human condition due to the bad
influence psychoanalysis might have on her. You've read the result of my
actions in the first phrase. I guess this was the moment when I signed my
doom concerning me getting to Lillian. It seemed clear to me, despite her
self-control and impenetrability.
No, she didn't start yelling hysterically and tearing the essay apart,
no, this was so unlike her and it was unlike her even then. She accepted
my essay politely, implying that she respected my point of view but
didn't share it at all. With my action I had implied that I would like
to protect her as my girl. She had probably decoded the message
correctly, but she chose to pretend not to have understood it.
Next time we met for studying, she offered me an essay written by her on
the defense of psychoanalysis, blowing into thin air all my previous
arguments. I was left helpless, my mind a blank about how I could defend
my position. I felt as if I had fallen down on the floor, and Lillian
were on her feet, watching me, with her self-confident posture.
This attitude probably implied: Lillian doesn't like to be told what to
do - let alone what to think - and will never let someone take control of
her actions or thoughts. She loves her freedom and won't let anyone take
it away from her.
Lillian was fascinating me and I was probably her victim, leaving all my
ego aside. That was the truth. I was becoming aware of my situation, but
what bothered me was not that I had fallen so deep down, but that I
couldn't be with Lillian. I was trapped in a hopeless, futureless,
powerful passion that was ravaging me, or, better said, she had trapped
me. But Lillian herself remained inaccessible to me... not allowing me to
hope of any reciprocal feelings on her side...
This situation I was in prompted me to develop fantasies of Medieval
courtly love, to imagine myself in the position of a poor knight loving a
cruel mistress and being subjected to her in this way, as her vassal. A
love without hope considering that the lady was married to another man...
Lillian had a boyfriend. I was aware of that, and yet my overwhelming
feelings had pushed me into desperate actions... I myself was exchanging
'official' girlfriends for the eyes of the world, as I could not be
deceived in the depths of my heart. It was simply as a rage against my
failure with Lillian... But it was only her who occupied my thoughts...
From behind me, an arrow comes and pierces mine, with which I had hit the
target. All the people around me at the Sunday fair look to see who was
the one who challenged me. The girl I had brought with me points to a man
with a ponytail. Besides him stands no one else than Lillian. I study my
opponent, but then I realize that it is Lillian who is holding the bow.
Probably this is the 'carnivalesque' Bakhtin was describing, with the
reversal of hierarchies...
Lillian throws a glove at me, challenging me. I accept the challenge and
we start shooting each of us our target. She wins - just as she has won
my heart.
And yet I don't mind my defeat. I wouldn't mind my whole life being a
reversal of hierarchies. As long as Lillian would be close to me...
Few men would be willing to accept the superiority of a woman, to respect
her and to serve her in a Medieval-like fashion, to pay hommage to her as
her vassals.