Page 162
“Passion is not well bred. Her fingers bit their spot. She would have bound me to her with ropes and had us lie face to face unable to move but move in each other, unable to feel but feel each other. She would have deprived us of all senses bar the sense of touch and smell. In a blind, deaf and dumb world we could conclude our passion infinitely.”
In this passage the narrator is reminiscing on the past relationship that the main character and Louise had. This was stated after Louise asked is he would be true to her. He responded “with all my heart.” The irony here is that earlier in the book the narrator talks about the hoop of rope that she had around his heart but it was in a positive sense in which he was talking about at the time.
There is a sense of struggle within this passage. The deprivation of the senses as described only leads me to believe the turmoil felt within the main character. He is lost without Louise but at the same time is unable to have her. As elated as he once was with her, he now describes their relationship in a negative light with pain she caused him by pinching his nipple, binding him to her, and then stripping him of the innate senses. Moving as one sounds more like a struggle than a pleasure, too. Where her touch used to be soft, the narrator describes it now as a bite.
Previously the narrator wrote a short passage on each sense respectively and the importance of each in regards to Louise. To now be stripped of them by her contradicts previous passages. However, going forward I think the main character would benefit from being blind, as he would not have to see Louise sick and suffering. On page 186 it is written, “What then kills love? Only this: neglect. Not to see you when you stand before me.” Again the senses are removed and painful feelings are present; death, pain, and neglect.