Publisher's Synopsis
It was late on a cold and dark November evening in 1879 when the steam train roared into Paris. The door was flung open and Anna was overwhelmed by the din of shouting porters and coachmen, from the motley scene of people of all types and ages hurrying in all directions but most of all, by the beauty of the language which even the roughest of the porters spoke. The Count, showing fatherly concern for her, helped her to descend and said quietly, almost to himself: "I wonder how you would have managed here on your own." Anna, a Swedish twenty-two year old innocent from a remote country manor, felt both exhilaration at the realisation of her most longed for dream and also great anxiety whether she would be able to cope. Some months and many experiences later, she had very different concerns. Why should not a young man and a young woman be able to show each other trust and friendship without speaking about love? She now hated what she had previously taken for granted, what she now regarded as "all these stilted, unnatural habits, which prevent us getting to know young men properly in private..... But where is the limit to our freedom and when do we sin?"
