I fell in love with Berella in a Parisian café, the nearby Eiffel Tower shrouded in gray and dripping with rain. She was attractive in the unconventional sense, with bulbous, milky blue eyes set wide apart and a hirsute, ebony face of the most hypnotic countenance. Exotic in every aspect of the word, her beauty surpassed that of any woman or wild thing I had ever seen. Her dialect, too, was as mysterious and hypnotic as the tone of her voice, unfamiliar despite my numerous travels outside England, to regions of the Carpathian Mountains even, where she claimed roots. In esoteric knowledge, beauty, and intelligence she was unparalleled, and these traits, among others, sealed the fate of my heart, which, despite having previously only desired adventure and material wealth, now longed for her attention, and her attention only. That evening, after the storm had passed, in a park bordered and threaded with wet roses, I bent to one knee and asked Berella for her hand in marriage: me, clad i