Suzanne

I think that the first verse introduces the narrator's encounter with Suzanne and how he has such visceral feelings towards her at that moment, despite knowing rationally that she's "half crazy" and that he has "no love to give her." Like in Cohen's quotation from the interview, when Suzanne actually invited him down and they had that moment together, he had no intention to do anything because he didn't want to violate the relationship between Suzanne Valliancourt and Armand Valliancourt. He knew there was nothing and could be nothing there. But in spite of all that, he touches her perfect body with his mind. I'm not going to pretend I know what that means exactly, but I think in short it just means that they had a very special experience that he can explain in no other way, so special that he writes a song about it and gives it her name. It's not something he'll ever forget.

(It's funny, recently I had an experience where I had a long talk in a Starbucks with a girl I had just meant a few weeks earlier, and I'm quite sure there was strong interest coming from both sides; only she had a boyfriend. I went in knowing that nothing could happen, and yet I, myself, had this experience (in spite of my rational disinterest) where I've never been so much on the same wavelength with a girl; it was an experience that was so special that it's not something I'll soon forget. I obviously couldn't articulate it as well as Cohen did in this song, but I think it's similar, and it might say something about Cohen's ability to discover and build on the poetry of an experience. And it's funny; I just realized that the girl in question did, in fact, share a few oranges with me that day.)

I think that the second verse ties these feelings to religion, as Cohen often does. I've looked at all the comments thus far and have taken from them the idea of following faith blindly or not questioning your beliefs. I've gotten the impression that the second verse talks about feeling that one's faith is right, despite rationally doubting it. Quite similar to the narrator's experience with Suzanne by the river.

The third verse could be like a response to the second verse. They are both instances where the narrator feels a deep feeling of love while rationally doubting it; the second verse is like a moment where he questions his faith and isn't sure whether to follow his rational doubt or his feeling (shown by the ambiguous language "and you think maybe you'll trust him"). The narrator must be a strong believer of Jesus, because the third verse sounds like a decision to surrender to the latter; casting away all rational doubt and going with your feeling; in this case, letting Suzanne take your hand and lead you where she may. It's summed up in the last line "you know that you can trust her for she's touched your perfect body with her mind." Despite all the doubt, he knows that she can trust her because of the way she has touched him on so visceral a level. No amount of doubt can rid him of that perfect love.

So yeah, that's what I think the song is about. Through the parallel examples of his special experience with the taken woman he's attracted to and the experience of questioning one's faith, it's about surrendering to what you feel is right despite doubting it rationally. I don't think this necessarily has any connotations of adultery (though Famous Blue Raincoat might be a significant argument for the opposite if we look at Cohen's work in terms of a canon); it just has to do with how the narrator decides to remember the experience. He was stuck trying to figure out if he decided that he loved her in that moment, or if he should tell himself that it meant nothing because she was already married. The third verse is him choosing to believe that they did share something special that night by the river, and that it did mean something. He did, after all, write an exceptionally beautiful song about it bearing her name.