for us to take shelter before releasing itself upon the spring flowers and green, receptive earth. The
feeling, I believe, was fear, although at the time I told myself it was love. The danger Percival posed
was not known to me. For all I could tell, he was just a young man who drove recklessly. I believe
now that I feared him instinctively. Still, he had captured my heart without effort. I watched him,
glancing at his lovely pale skin and his long, delicate fingers upon the gearshift. I couldn’t speak.
Over the bridge he sped, and then onto the rue de Rivoli, the wipers swishing across the windshield,
cutting a porthole through the water.
“‘Naturally I am taking you to lunch,’ he said, glancing at me as he slowed before a grand hotel off
the place de la Concorde. ‘I see that you’re hungry.’
“‘And how can you see such a thing as hunger?’ I replied, challenging him, although he was
correct: I had not eaten breakfast and was ravenous.
“‘I have a special talent,’ he said, taking the car out of gear, pulling the brake shaft, and peeling his
leather driving gloves from his hands one by one. ‘I know exactly what you desire before you know
yourself.’
“‘Then tell me,’ I demanded, hoping that he would find me bold and sophisticated, the very things I
knew I was not. ‘What do I want most of all?’
“He studied me for a moment. I saw, as I had in the first seconds of our meeting, the fleeting,
sensual cruelty behind his blue eyes. ‘A beautiful death,’ he said, so quietly I was not sure that I’d
heard him correctly. With that he opened the door and slid out of the car.
“Before I had time to question this bizarre statement, he opened the passenger door, helped me
from my seat, and we were walking arm in arm into the restaurant. Pausing at a gilded mirror, he shed
his hat and coat, glancing about as if the fleet of waiters rushing to assist him were too slow for his
taste. I watched the glass as his reflection moved, examining his profile, the beautifully cut suit of
light gray gabardine that in the harsh clarity of the mirror appeared almost blue, an off rhyme of his
eyes. His skin was deathly pale, nearly transparent, and yet this quality had the strange effect of
making him more attractive, as if he were a precious object that had been kept from the sun.”
As he listened to Gabriella’s tale, Verlaine tried to reconcile her description with the Percival
Grigori he had seen yesterday afternoon, but he could not. Clearly Gabriella did not speak of the
sickly, decrepit man Verlaine knew, but rather of the man Percival Grigori had once been. Instead of
questioning her, as he wished, Verlaine sat back and listened.
“Within seconds a waiter had taken our coats and was leading us into the dining room, a converted
ballroom that opened upon a courtyard garden. All the while I could feel him glancing at me with
intense interest, as if searching for my reaction.
“There was no question of menus or of ordering our dishes. Wineglasses were filled and plates
arrived, as if everything had been arranged ahead of time. Of course Percival achieved his desired
effect. My astonishment at it all was immense, although I tried to disguise it. While I had been sent to
fine schools and had been raised in the bourgeois fashion of the city, I was quite aware that this man
was beyond anything I had experienced. Looking over my clothes, I realized to my horror that I was
wearing my school attire, a detail I had overlooked in the excitement of the drive. In addition to my
drab clothing, my shoes were scuffed and I had forgotten my favorite perfume at my apartment.
“‘You’re blushing,’ he said. ‘Why?’
“I merely looked down at my pleated wool skirt and crisp white blouse, and he understood my
dilemma.
“‘You are the loveliest creature here,’ he said, without a hint of irony. ‘You look like an angel.’
“‘I look exactly like what I am,’ I said, pride overruling all other emotions. ‘A schoolgirl dining
with a wealthy older man.’
“‘I am not so much older than you,’ he said playfully.
“‘How much is not so much?’ I demanded. Although he appeared to be in his early twenties—an
age that was not, as he rightly said, much older than mine—his manners and the confidence with
which he carried himself seemed to belong to a man of great experience.
“‘I am more interested in you,’ he said, brushing away the question. ‘Tell me, do you enjoy your
studies? I believe you must. I own apartments near your school, and I have seen you before. You
always have the appearance of someone who has been in the library too long.’