SEVILLE, Spain -- Seville in the summer is so hot, they say, that even the dogs don't go outside. The athletes didn't at the recent World Championships, at least from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. The white walls of the city reflect the southern Spanish sun down the narrow corridors that resemble wintry Alpine passes without the cold.

At night the weather finally cools. The crowds venture out along the promenade, and the flamenco clapping starts in the Gypsy Quarter across the Guadalquivir River.

Dr. Fernando Rodriguez-Izquierdo at the University of Seville lives in a very different world. He prefers wandering through shaded moss gardens and listening to the sounds of frogs plopping into ponds or delving into 17th-century amorous adventure and some modern psychopathic obsession. He does all of this in his air-conditioned corner office, as a translator of Japanese literature and haiku.