Ballad of the Sad Cafe

Here's a nice one:

There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored - up feelings, energy, etc that had been living within the lover, untapped, all this time {...} he feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing and so there is only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world - a world intense and strange, complete in itself.
p. 20 McCullers Ballad of the Sad Cafe