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his landlady, the squeaking of floorboards in the lower hall, and then the festive rattle of cutlery. These are the sounds he has been listening for, and he leaves his room to go down to lunch.
    The Class
    His language teacher is pleasant and funny, and everyone in the class has a good time. Mr. Burdoff is relieved to see that although his comprehension is poor, he is not the slowest in the class. There are many unison drills out loud, and he joins in with gusto. He takes pleasure in the little stories the class studies so painfully: for example, Karl and Helga go on a sightseeing trip that ends with a mild surprise, and the students appreciate this with waves of laughter.
    Hesitation
    Mr. Burdoff sits beside a small Hawaiian woman and watches her very red lips as she describes with agony her travels in France. The hesitation of the members of the class as they attempt to speak is charming; a fresh innocence endows them as they expose their weakness.
    Mr. Burdoff Falls in Love
    Now Mr. Burdoff feels a growing attraction to the Hawaiian woman, who has moved to a seat directly in front of him. During each lesson he stares at her lacquered black ponytail, her narrow shoulders, and the lower edge of her buttocks which delicately protrude through the opening at the back of her chair within inches of his knees. He hungers for a glimpse of her neatly crossed legs, her ballet slipper bobbing as she struggles to answer a question, and her slim hand as it writes, regularly traveling out across the page and then withdrawing again from sight.
    He is enchanted by the colors she wears and the objects she carries with her. Every night he lies awake and dreams of helping her out of a serious difficulty. Every dream is the same and stops just short of the first kiss.
    His love, however, is more fragile than he knows, and it dies in a moment the day a tall and sumptuous Norwegian woman joins the class.
    The Advent of Helen
    As she enters the room, swinging her hips around the crowd of silent students, she seems to Mr. Burdoff magnificent and unwieldy. No sooner has she pulled in her hip to accommodate the writing arm of a chair on one side than her low-slung breast on the other side dislodges the chignon of an angry woman from Aix. The students make some effort to shift out of her way, but their chairs are bolted together in threes and they cannot coordinate their efforts. A slow flush crawls up Helen’s throat and cheeks.
    To Mr. Burdoff’s delight, she pushes past his knees and settles in the empty seat next to him. She smiles apologetically at him and at the class in general. A mingling of warm smells drifts from her armpits, her throat, and her hair, and Mr. Burdoff instantly forgets agreements, inflections, and moods, looks up at the teacher and sees only Helen’s white eyelashes.
    Mr. Burdoff Takes Helen behind a Statue
    Helen succumbs to Mr. Burdoff on their very first date, after an evening spent struggling in the wet grass behind a statue of Leopold Mozart. If it is not hard for Mr. Burdoff to lead Helen to the park in the first place, it is more of a problem to roll her damp girdle up around her waist and then to persuade her, after all the heaving
and grunting is over, that she has not been seen by an authority figure or a close friend. Once she is easier on that score, her remaining question to Mr. Burdoff is: Does he still respect her?
    Mr. Burdoff during Tannhäuser
    Much against his own wishes but out of love for Helen, Mr. Burdoff agrees to attend a Wagner opera at the Cologne opera house. During the first act, Mr. Burdoff, accustomed as he is to the clarity of the eighteenth century, becomes short of breath and is afraid he may faint in his hard seat at the top of the hall. Schooled in the strict progressions of Scarlatti, he cannot detect any advance in this music. At what he considers an arbitrary point, the act ends.
    When the lights go up, Mr. Burdoff examines Helen’s face. A smile hovers around her lips,