From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

“I only have life in you. ... you can’t die, Elfrieda. You cannot die. I’m inside you. I’m existing in you, alone. Just allow me to stay, for Gods sake.”

They sit side-by-side in the meadow grass, watching the sun make its eternal arc across the heavens. ...

“I once met this fellow in the south of France - this painter - do you know what he called this time of day, the hour before sunset? ... The golden hour.” Wilfred waves his hand at the sun, which now burns just above the jagged peaks that form the horizon. “He said that’s when everything looks the most beautiful, just before the sun sets: this luminous air turning everything to gold. He said it made him want to paint the whole world. And then it’s gone, just like that. The sun disappears, the night arrives.”

”The golden hour ...” Elfrieda stares at Wilfred’s hair, which has indeed transformed into a gold so pure as to make the alchemists weep, like the sun itself. She wants to touch it, to bury her face in it, to lick the gold from each strand before it’s gone, before Wilfred’s gone, and the night arrives.