音频下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.43]Passage 9. Relationship that Lasts

[00:05.46]If somebody tells you,“ I’ll love you for ever,” will you believe it?

[00:12.04]I don’t think there’s any reason not to.

[00:15.31]We are ready to believe such commitment at the moment,

[00:19.04]whatever change may happen afterwards.

[00:21.76]As for the belief in an everlasting love, that’s another thing.

[00:27.56]Then you may be asked whether there is such a thing as an everlasting love.

[00:33.15]I’d answer I believe in it, but an everlasting love is not immutable.

[00:39.27]You may unswervingly love or be loved by a person.

[00:43.54]But love will change its composition with the passage of time.

[00:47.92]It will not remain the same.

[00:50.43]In the course of your growth and as a result of your increased experience,

[00:56.34]love will become something different to you. www.engbus.cn

[00:59.51]In the beginning you believed a fervent love for a person could last definitely.

[01:05.64]By and by, however, “fervent” gave way to “prosaic”.

[01:10.67]Precisely because of this change it became possible for love to last.

[01:15.92]Then what was meant by an everlasting love would eventually end up in a sort of interdependence.

[01:23.47]We used to insist on the difference between love and liking.

[01:28.29]The former seemed much more beautiful than the latter.

[01:32.12]One day, however, it turns out there’s really no need to make such difference.

[01:38.24]Liking is actually a sort of love.

[01:41.09]By the same token, the everlasting interdependence is actually an everlasting love.

[01:47.43]I wish I could believe there was somebody who would love me for ever.

[01:52.46]That’s, as we all know, too romantic to be true.

Instead, it will more often than not be a case of lasting relationship.