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25 Byzantium Our love is like Byzantium, a place I can hardly imagine, a place that exists now only as archeology, ruins captured on the oldest of films, yellowed & crackling, shelved deep in state-run archives. Somewhere—Berlin?—they have mosaics from Byzantium—the golden, the splendid—stored in numbered boxes in a stadt museum basement. Somewhere— the Vatican?—they have religious artifacts, rescued from the infidels, displayed in dusty, poorly lit glass cases. To see such things as are left of Byzantium requires appointments and appointments require letters of introduction. May I introduce myself to you, Herr Doktor Fuller? I am your wife, Frau Professor Kercheval. You may kiss my hand— Door to Byzantium, City of Wonders, Kiss my hand, my elbow, then later my neck. ...

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