“Alexander learned about his father’s death on Tuesday. Returning from the institute, he prepared dinner, went to pick up his daughter at kindergarten, ironed her dress and ribbons for tomorrow, worked on the text of his dissertation, crossing out two pages on Shakespearean mysticism, on which he had previously spent the whole morning, and already read to his daughter before bed about some terrible Georgian devas, when the telephone, which had been prudently taken there, began to crackle in the kitchen..."