Tip Of The Hat To Wilhelm's Seducer (1)

1

A light dawned on Wilhelm’s face; trying not to think about it, he had said, trying not to think about it, about her leaving, and about her wanting him to do— to do what? To stay or to follow her, and he should have just asked but he hadn’t wanted to risk it— to risk it! After the dozens of near-death experiences he had had in the last few days, he had bloody earned a safe line to walk, hadn’t he? A solid place to stand. And so he had talked, the way he always talked, babbling on about nothing important and giving her, giving her absolutely the wrong idea. Eugènie was nodding, looking pleased with herself (though, he paid her no mind), and Wilhelm suddenly realised that all these words, which he had thought were trapped in his head, had in fact fallen out of his mouth in a sort of verbal stew. Homely and slightly unpleasant, and also filled with chunks of regretfully unidentifiable origin.

Irina was beautiful, he cooed. It was not a lie, she was indeed very beautiful, and had it not been for his ethics (or perhaps his wife) he would have bathed her softly in waves of divine and hopeless tenderness. She was more elaborate than a purely spoilt child, however comely she may be, and at times he felt his heart were a mere marionette as she tugged violently upon his heartstrings with great dexterity and passion emanated from the simplicity of her gestures. Oh, he could recall her very breath: hot and faint, almond-scented and boyish, slightly laboured. But one cannot understand the true beauty and charm of Irina without first understanding how, when, and what it was precisely that lured pretentious, sombre, and rigorous Wilhelm from his colourless haven of grown-up pleasures and monotonous perceptions into the simple wholehearted nirvana that was to be felt only with his Irina. She daydreamed of homeland and evening (and scorching him with the poker by the fire). She dreamed of Daghestan: the glen was hot and gleaming --