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were twanging through space, zinging on rosewood skis through powdered snow, darting faster than time, flashing forward on thunderous stallions, a pair of pebbles rolling over and over in a cascade of foaming glacier melt. Before, she had been one of the attractions for the other skaters, but now, with him, she was the single attraction on the lake. "The brown-eyed Levantine and me," she kept saying over and over to herself as they gleamed before a multitude of witnesses, twirling dervishes, her hand on his, their skates flashing the cold February light.
    Strange , she thought to herself, that the colder it becomes the warmer I feel, the more I flush, the hotter become my lips, so hot I believe they could sear.
    When, finally, after a wide-sweeping duet, during which they made ten great circles around the entire rink, perhaps fifteen slashes down its diagonals and several promenades down its central corridor, they shot together to a brilliant finale, all flashing blades and chips of ice which spattered the gaping spectators, embers burning flesh. Standing, then, together, their lungs heaving, their foreheads dripping sweat, they laughed, and Isabelle was seized with an unrequitable desire–to kiss the steam of Rehid Bey's frosty breath.
    With her brothers they sat down to mugs of hot chocolate at a small glass-enclosed pavilion that adjoined the lake. There the four young men toasted her seventeen years and wished her many more, which, Augustin noted, should be even more delicious than those she'd already endured.
    This led to a discussion of the meaning of life, upon which each had his own opinion. Nicolas said that one should aspire to nobility, face each moment with bravery, believing it may be the last. Vladimir said that survival was the only purpose he could divine in human existence, and amplified this depressing thought with nothing more than an enigmatic smile. To Augustin life was a privilege that must be earned–the great sin, he said, is to let it pass one by, to sit while others run, when clearly the point is to lead the pack.
    Isabelle listened impatiently to these sentiments, for she had heard them all for years. She wanted to hear from Rehid Bey whom she noticed had been most attentive to the others and whom she feared had suddenly lost all interest in herself. She was about to turn to him, to insist on hearing his manner of coping with existence, when he turned, at the same moment, to her, and began to speak in serene and mellifluous French.
    "It seems to me," he said, "–and I speak from a pedestal here since I'm twenty-seven years old–that the point of life is to perfect the spirit. Your brothers have mentioned some of the ways, and there are many more besides. I know mystics who devote themselves to contemplation so that they may rend the curtain that separates men from God. I know believers in man–humanists, they're called–who worship at the altar of human culture. And it seems that everyone I know is trying to express himself in a poem or a novel or a play. Then," and he glanced at her brothers, "there are the political revolutionaries who want to alter the social order by subversion and force–a popular mode, this season, among young Russian intellectuals of my acquaintance.
    "But I believe in the senses–the pursuit of physical sensations wherever they may lead. For instance, Isabelle, our experience today–the way we felt when we skated the ice. It seems to me that a man must strive, as best he can in his limited tenure on earth, to hone each feeling to its sharpest point. Requital of desire, total satiation–by this route I hope to perfect my spirit, and avenge myself against the germ that will bring my death."
    He stared at her, and her alone, the entire time he spoke, his eyes growing bigger, it seemed to her, in the dwindling afternoon light. When he was finished, he blinked and added that in his opinion the same theory held true as much for a woman as a