A brief relationship becomes an obsession in this tale centering on the narrator's love for a woman named Lou. When his dreams of rekindling their lost love and living happily ever after seem impossible, he imagines instead wreaking the worst acts of vengeance against her. This story ponders the despair of living in a world devoid of love and true companionship. "Where goes the white when melts the snow?" asks the epitaph. It turns to sludge, Zeller suggests, and nothing will ever be as simple and good as it used to be. Zeller describing the insecurities, preoccupations, and egotism of young, urban Parisians