Anastasia
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David Graves
At the end of three days, moving southward, you come upon Anastasia… I should now list the wares that can profitably be bought here: agate, onyx, chrysoprase, and other varieties of chalcedony; I should praise the flesh of the golden pheasant cooked here over fires of seasoned cherry wood and sprinkled with much sweet marjoram; and tell of the women I have seen bathing in the pool of a garden and who sometimes—it is said—invite the stranger to disrobe with them and chase them in the water. But with all this, I would not be telling you the city’s true essence; for… Anastasia awakens desires one at a time only to force you to stifle them… Such is the power… that Anastasia, the treacherous city, possesses; if for eight hours a day you work… your labor which gives form to desire takes from desire its form, and you believe you are enjoying Anastasia wholly when you are only its slave.
Anastasia, a City of Desire, from Invisible Cities (1974), Italo Calvino