"Men speak freely of the women they've had, and we'recondemned to silence. Why? Aren't we as free as you?Don't we, like you, have the right to take pleasure whereverwe find it? . . . They praise seducers in art, poetry, andliterature and put a mask of infamy on any woman who'shad many lovers. This is the point where the fight mustbe fought. Women's morality must triumph, and that'swhat I'm working at . . ." Thus Ariane, unconventional, irrepressible, and irre-sistible, at seventeen the queen bee of the provincialRussian town where, after her mother's early demise,she lives with her freethinking aunt. But Ariane is tiredof breaking hearts in the sticks. Her father may wish tomarry her off, but she means to go to the university inMoscow, and she will do whatever it takes to make herway the way she likes. In Moscow, Ariane is in her element. She loves theglamour of the big city. She's undaunted by its dangers.Before long, she meets Constantin Michel, businessman,man of the world, man-about-town. A new struggle begins.The inspiration for Billy Wilder's Love in the Afternoon,Arianehasthe perverse glitter of Nabokov andthe disabused curiosity and keenemotional intelligence of Colette. It isa brilliant exploration-engrossing,unnerving, comic, and cunning-ofthe matchless cruelty of desire.