“It’s like old times, dear and supportive reader, to begin a story with remarks about the weather; but what to do? it's hard to do without it. Tell me yourself, will the picture be good if the setting of the figures that compose it does not indicate what time it belongs to? It can be extremely convenient for you to continue reading when you know from the very first lines whether the sun was shining with full brilliance, or the wind was howling, or the rain was beating heavily on the windows. However, none of these three circumstances applies to the present case. Our simple and extremely fair story begins in winter, at that time of year when nature is considered dead, when everyone neglects it, when they try to replace the sun with chandeliers and compensate for the lack of natural and fresh flowers and pleasures with artificial ones...”