The Unity of the Two Through the Gift of Self

In Act One of his play, The Jeweler's Shop, Blessed Karol Wojtyla tells the story of Andrew and Teresa, who had known each other for quite some time before they realized their love for each other. Andrew, in fact, had avoided her, even seeking to evade those thoughts of her that kept persisting in his mind. And when he proposed marriage, it was in a curious manner.

Teresa - Andrew has chosen me and asked for my hand. . . . We were just walking on the right side of the market square when Andrew turned around and said, "Do you want to be my life's companion?" That's what he said. He didn't say: do you want to be my wife, but: my life's companion. What he intended to say must have been thought over. He said it looking ahead . . . as if to signify that in front of us was a road whose end could not be seen. . . .

Andrew – I don't think I even know what "love at first sight" means. After a time, I realized that she had come into the focus of my attention, I mean, I had to be interested in her. . . . There must have been something in Teresa that suited my personality. . . . It was not an assent independent of an act of will. I simply resisted sensation and the appeal of the senses, for I knew that otherwise I would never really leave my "ego" and reach the other person - but that meant an effort, for my senses fed at every step on the charms of the women I met. . . . gradually, I learned to value beauty accessible to the mind, that is to say, truth. . . .
I had wanted to regard love as passion, as an emotion to surpass all – I had believed in the absolute of emotion. And that is why I could not grasp the basis of that strange persistence of Teresa in me, the cause of her presence, the assurance of her place in my “ego,” or what creates around her that strange resonance, that feeling “you ought to.” . . . love can be a collision in which two selves realize profoundly that they ought to belong to each other, even though they have no convenient moods and sensations. It is one of these processes in the universe which bring a synthesis, unite what was divided, broaden and enrich what was limited and narrow.

Teresa - If I was not quite unprepared for his proposal it was because I felt that somehow I was the right one for him, and that I supposed I could love him. Being aware of that, I must already have loved him. . . .

Andrew – The rings in the window appealed to us with a strange force. Now, they are just artifacts of precious metal, but it will be so only until that moment when I put one of them on Teresa’s finger, and she puts the other on mine. . . . The weddings rings did not stay in the window. The jeweler looked long into our eyes. Testing for the last time the fineness of precious metal, he spoke seriously, deep thoughts, which remained strangely in my memory.

The Jeweler – The weight of these golden rings is not the weight of metal, but the proper weight of man, each of you separately and both together. Ah, man’s own weight, the proper weight of man! Can it be at once heavier, and yet more intangible? It is the weight of constant gravity, riveted to a short flight. The flight has the shape of a spiral, an ellipse – and the shape of the heart.
Ah, the proper weight of man! This rift, this tangle, this ultimate depth – this clinging, when it is so hard to unstick heart and thought. And in all this – freedom, a freedom, and sometimes frenzy, the frenzy of freedom trapped in this tangle. And in all this – love, which springs from freedom, as water springs from an oblique rift in the earth. This is man! He is not transparent, not monumental, not simple, in fact he is poor. This is one man – and what about two people, four, a hundred, a million – multiply all this (multiply the greatness by the weakness), and you will have the product of humanity, the product of human life. . . .

Chorus – New people – Teresa and Andrew – two until now, but still not one, one from now on, though still two. . . . Ah, how man thirsts for feelings, how people thirst for intimacy. Teresa and Andrew. . . . Love – love pulsating in brows, in man becomes thought and will: the will of Teresa being Andrew, the will of Andrew being Teresa. . . .
How can it be done, Teresa, for you to stay in Andrew forever? How can it be done, Andrew, for you to stay in Teresa forever? Since man will not endure in man and man will not suffice.
Body – thought passes through it, is not satisfied in the body – and love passes through it. . . .

Andrew – And the jeweler, as I have already mentioned, looked at us in a peculiar way. His gaze was at once gentle and penetrating. I had a feeling he was watching us while he was selecting and weighing the rings. He then put them on our fingers to try them. I had the feeling that he was seeking our hearts with his eyes and delving into our past. Does he encompass the future too? The expression of his eyes combined warmth with determination. The future for us remains an unknown quantity, which we now accept without anxiety. Love has overcome anxiety. The future depends on love.

Teresa - The future depends on love.

Andrew – At one point, my eyes once more met the gaze of the old jeweler. I felt just then that His gaze was not only sounding our hearts, but also trying to impart something to us. We found ourselves not only on the level of His gaze, but also on the level of His life. Our whole existence stood before Him. His eyes were flashing signals which we were not able to receive fully just then, as once we had been unable to receive fully the signals in the mountains – and yet, they reached to our inner hearts. And somehow we went in their direction, and they covered the fabric of our whole lives. . . .

[Act Three - many years later, Christopher, the son of Andrew and Teresa, considers his own love for Monica, the daughter of Anna and Stefan]

Christopher – You have compelled me, Monica, to grasp my existence as an untold completeness, enhanced and delineated because you have drawn near. . . . We have to accept the fact that love weaves itself into our fate. . . . If I could take your freezing hands, warm them with my hands – a unity will emerge, a vision of new existence, which will embrace us both. . . .
Love is a constant challenge, thrown to us by God, thrown, I think, so that we should challenge fate. . . .
I cannot go beyond you. One does not love a person for his “easy character.” Why does one love at all? What do I love you for, Monica? Don’t ask me to answer. I couldn’t say. Love outdistances its object, or approaches it so closely that it is almost lost from view. Man must then think differently, must leave behind cold deliberations – and in that “hot thinking,” one question is important: Is it creative?
But even that he cannot tell, since he is so close to his object. When the wave of emotion subsides, what remains will be important.

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Excerpts from The Jeweler's Shop (1960), translated by Boleslaw Taborksi (1980)

"There must have been something in Teresa that suited my personality. . . . It was not an assent independent of an act of will." Love is a choice. Even if the initial attraction to another is based on "something" in the other, something we perhaps cannot immediately put our finger on, as with Christopher, still the feeling of emotion stemming from such intangible attraction is not itself love. "When the wave of emotion subsides, what remains will be important." We must not confuse that initial rush and thrill that we might for being love, such emotions come and go, as happened with Anna and Stefan. Rather, properly understood, the occasion presents the choice to proceed further, to give our assent to love or not. It is an act of the will to make a gift of love or not give.

Such a gift of self in love necessarily requires a coming out of self, a letting go of ego, to allow the other to be part of you, and you a part of the other, "the will of Teresa being Andrew, the will of Andrew being Teresa." Such love is not something that "just happens," and the gift of self cannot be compelled. Love is choice. Love is an act of freedom - "a freedom, and sometimes frenzy, the frenzy of freedom trapped in [a] tangle. And in all this – love, which springs from freedom, as water springs from an oblique rift in the earth."