Free Ignorance by Milan Kundera

was in love with the city: not like a patriot searching every corner of the land for his roots, his memories, the traces of his dead, but like a traveler responding with surprise and amazement, like a child wandering dazzled through an amusement park and reluctant ever to leave it. Having learned Prague's history, he would declaim at length to anyone who'd listen about its streets, its palaces, its churches,
    94
    and hold forth endlessly on its stars: on Emperor Rudolf (protector of painters and alchemists), on Mozart (who, says the gossip, had a mistress there), on Franz Kafka (who though miserable throughout his lifetime in this city had, thanks to the travel agencies, turned into its patron saint).
    At an unhoped-for speed Prague forgot the Russian language that for forty years all its inhabitants had been made to learn from grade school onward, and now, eager for applause on the world's proscenium, displayed to the visitors its new attire of English-language signs and labels. In Gustaf's company offices the staff, the trading associates, the rich customers all addressed him in English, so Czech was no more than an impersonal murmur, a background of sound against which only Anglo-American phonemes stood forth as human words. And one day when Irena landed in Prague, he greeted her at the airport not with their usual French "Salut!" but with a "Hello!"
    Suddenly everything was different. For let's look at Irena's life after Martin died: she had nobody left to speak Czech with, her daughters refused to waste their time with such an obviously
    95
    useless language; French was her everyday language, her only language, so it was quite natural for her to impose it on her Swede. This linguistic choice had determined their roles: since Gustaf spoke French poorly, it was she who led the talk within the couple; she grew giddy with her own eloquence: heavens, after so long she could finally speak, speak and be heard! Her verbal superiority balanced out their relative strengths: she was entirely dependent on him, but in their conversations she ruled, and she drew him into her own world.
    Now Prague was reshaping their language as a couple; he spoke English, Irena tried to persist with her French, to which she felt ever more attached, but with no external support (French no longer held much charm for this previously Francophile city), she wound up capitulating; their interaction turned around: in Paris, Gustaf used to listen attentively to an Irena who thirsted for the sound of her own words; in Prague he turned into the talker, a big talker, a long talker. Knowing little English, Irena understood only half of what he said, and as she didn't feel like making much effort, she listened to him rather little and
    spoke to him still less. Her Great Return took a very odd twist: in the streets, surrounded by Czechs, the whiff of an old familiarity would caress her and for a moment make her happy; then, back in the house, she would become a silent foreigner.
    Couples have a continuous conversation that lulls them, its melodious stream throwing a veil over the body's waning desires. When the conversation breaks off, the absence of physical love comes forward like a ghost. In the face of Irena's muteness, Gustaf lost his confidence. He came to prefer spending time with her in the presence of her family, her mother, her half-brother and his wife; he would dine with them all at the villa or at a restaurant, looking to their company for shelter, for refuge, for peace. They were never short of topics because they could only broach so few: their common vocabulary was limited, and to make themselves understood everyone had to speak slowly and keep repeating things. Gustaf was on the way to recovering his serenity; this slow-tempo babble suited him, it was restful, agreeable, and even merry (they were constantly laughing over their comical distortions of English words).
    96
    97
    Irena's eyes were long since empty of desire, but from habit they still set