Anais Nin wrote this story in 1930 and used it as a starting point for her first book, D.H Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, which she published in 1932.
She writes that Lawrence is "against tepid living and tepid loves" and that he resented the lack of feeling in people and even more so, the lack of expression of feelings.
This made me think of relationships between two people who view living and loving very differently from each other. Does it make sense for a sensitive person, full of feeling to be in love with another person who strongly believes there is no reason to ever cry or to express any "negative" emotion such as sorrow, frustration, anger? Does it make sense for a person who believes life is a beautiful gift to be with a person who needs to be high to enjoy life or who needs to fill, fill, fill life with empty experiences to feel any bit of satisfaction from it? What kind of living is this? It's not tepid but it seems as though some people keep life at arm's length when they don't allow themselves to feel. They shut down, put up their guard,escape, employ defense mechanisms, run away whenever life presents any issues perceived as undesirable.
Sex is tightly intertwined with emotions and feelings and the expression of them. Suppression of emotions and feelings causes one to live inside his/her head rather than in the world and leads to alienation between two people because they are unable to connect. Over time, they drift further and further apart from each other until they realize they are living separate lives. There is no choice but to sever their tie unless one of them rises up to try to save the relationship. Maybe if we can understand our opposite we can open ourselves up to infinite possibilities beyond what we ever imaged could be possible. It's worth a try anyway.
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