FOREPLAY

From the Preface which, because this is "A Love Story," is called "Foreplay":

Terrence Einhorn Kerrigan is in love.
     When his wife and children, after all those years, were taken from him, he told himself he would never love a woman again, and he never did, not in that way, which requires a surrender of the sovereign spirit. But a man must love nonetheless, and thus a love affair begins this story - a love affair with a city.
     Here he has made his home, in a city whose moods are unpredictable, unfathomable, unimpeachable as a woman's, often still and dark, perfidious as its April weather - now light and sweet as the touch of a summer girl who fancies you, now cold as snow, false as ice, merciless as the howling beating wind, now quietly enigmatic as the stirring of the great chestnut trees which line the banks of the lake beneath his windows.
     The city is Copenhagen.