“...Andrey sat down at the table, which creaked in surprise, looked around at the old dark wood shelves that covered the walls from floor to ceiling and were stuffed with binding spines from floor to ceiling, took in a breath of library air and even closed his eyes in anticipation. Student... I'm a student. Adult life, real life, which sparkled like an impossible mirage somewhere ahead throughout the damned last school year, throughout the anxious summer of applicants, has arrived. New, untested words - scholarship, audience, seminar - sounded like spells, evoking magic that was about to happen. The magic happened - a long-haired girl with a beautiful evil face entered the reading room and blurted out in front, with her back to Andrey...”