In my mind I used to compare my trip with Dora to the perfect crime. Although in fact it was not like that at all.

Dora burst into our editorial office with the wonderful strength of spring that enthralled everything living. I say this in spite of the fact that we were just at the beginning of the long, dirty, and therefore cheerless town winter, permeated with dampness like an old forgotten mattress in an abandoned shack. It was as if after those depressingly grey days the sun and fresh spring rain had moved into the office, as if new energy had whinnied within the walls of the century-old building and sap had begun to flow through them.

"I’m Dora. I’m new here," I heard, as I sat head bent over an inferior contribution. I was crossing out words and even whole sentences, changing the order of paragraphs, just to make the future article more or less readable.

"Fine," I muttered and went on correcting.

"I’m going to meddle in ecology – I hope you won’t mind."

"I’m Dora."

"Glad to meet you, Dorka, I’m Marek." I clasped her hand firmly and life-giving energy flowed through her long fingers into me, flooding my whole body.

"I’m not Dorka, my name’s Dora!"

"As you like, Dora."

She smiled, her eyes shining with the blue of the sky and the brightness of the sun.

"First names?"

"Of course – we’re colleagues," I nodded in agreement. She stood on tiptoe and gave me a light kiss.

"You smoke too much, Marek," she commented. "If I need any advice, can I come to you? You know, I like your articles."

"I’m at your disposal Any time . . ."

I put particular stress on the any time.

With a smile she freed her hand, which I was still clasping, and swung round.

"Bye then, Marek!" she chimed from the doorway.

At forty, you can’t talk about love at first sight. It would be banal and untrue. When he has just reached forty, a man is mature, he has a stable and untroubled family life, he knows he will not conquer all the peaks, or even the foothills and caves of this world, and that is why he at last devotes all his energies to his work. There is hardly any room here for emotional adventures and digressions: either on account of emotional aridity or fatigue, or as a result of a rational approach to life, when he realizes that new emotions would be a disturbing element, that they would be inappropriate at his age and in his position. This was the image I had created of myself and I really did devote my energies to the newspaper. I no longer expected any great surprises in life, I did not even allow myself to consider the possibility. One failed marriage was quite enough for me. I was trying to maintain and enhance the second, as a good householder does his garden. For a long time after the divorce I couldn’t concentrate properly on my work. I was haunted by the idea that I was a perpetual destroyer, that I always ruined the lives of others as well as my own. Morning after morning I used to wake up tired and the moment I opened my eyes the thought would throb through my head: "How pitiful you are!" That’s why I was trying to get the better of my conscience in a second marriage, I was trying to avoid the mistakes that led to the previous flop. No, I was not an exemplary, and certainly not an ideal husband, but I didn’t provoke unnecessary conflicts, either.

But at the moment when Dora stepped into my life, my image of myself collapsed. I felt a real physical need to gaze at her, touch her, embrace her and to breathe in her natural freshness. I also noticed a marked changed in the behaviour of my office colleagues: forever frowning, occupied with themselves and their problems, unshaven and often in sweat-soaked shirts after boozing all night, they suddenly competed with each other in the latest men’s fashions, gallantry and charm. Of course, in front of Dora, in relation to Dora and with the transparent aim of manoeuvring Dora into bed. Inveterate stay-at-homes suddenly felt like travelling all over Slovakia – with Dora. Hangers around in coffee bars and pubs were willing to desert their kingdoms and go for walks in the dirty, stinking town, and what quite shocked me – they even underwent the afflictions of trekking in the mountains. Our editor-in-chief was sincerely delighted by the metamorphosis of the male, that is, the majority, of the editorial staff, because the ambitions of these cockerels led to an improvement in the quality of their journalistic work. As if we had turned into lovesick schoolboys longing for praise from an attractive school teacher . . .