“On a damp autumn morning, on the tired nag of an old night cab driver, in a tattered cab, I trudged along the deserted alleys between Prechistenka and Arbat. It was nine o'clock in the morning. Cooks with baskets full of provisions trotted from the Smolensk market; two preparers leisurely tangled in the hems of their gray overcoats, sewn with height in mind...”