A Circassian Mistress

Rustem Bey told no one why he was going. This was not the kind of world where men unveiled their hearts to anyone, and in any case the aga had no one in whom he could confide, but the truth was that Rustem bey was looking for a woman. His brief time with Tamara had provided him with inklings of what might be between a man and a woman, and his heart, his stomach, his loins and his throat yearned for something that he could not articulate even to himself. He needed someone to meld with. He knew himself to be something like a garden where the only flowers were those of potatoes, ragweed and neglected onions, butwhere a true gardener would have been able to drape the trellises with vines, and coax up tulips from the earth. It would be too simple to say that Rustem Bey was looking for romantic love, because in reality he was looking for the missing part of himself, and these are not often the same quest, even though we sometimes think that they are. Rustem bey had conceived the idea that if only he could find himself a Circassian mistress, amusing in demeanour, accomplished in music, red-lipped and fair of skin, excellent and enthusiastic in the techniques of physical love, then his life would be transformed.

chapter 25
Tales from the Journey to Smyrna
Louis de Bernieres
Birds Without Wings