Tereza thinks she “would fall in love with” the engineer if she cried before him. This reminds me of what Franz says on page 112: “Because love means renouncing strength.” Tereza and Franz are both portrayed as the weaker party in their respective power dynamics. Tomas and Sabina live lightly on their own terms, but refuse to yield their lifestyles to others. Tereza and Franz are weak, but sentimental and loving. Thus, can the strong love? This reminds me also of Jung’s quote, “Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking”.
(Power, then, in this sense, seems to refer to imbalanced power dynamics, as another perspective on love could be that love is the desire for the power to make another happy.)