“A wind wandered along the wide, dead lines of Vasilievsky Island. Kerosene lamps flickered in the lamps along the streets and gave absolutely no light. In the shimmer of the late March dawn, you could make out iced chunks of gray snow in the middle of the streets, and wet, narrow sidewalks. In houses, despite the early hour, the windows were black—unlit. And the houses here were old wooden ones, mostly gray, with mezzanines. Only at the very Small Prospect there rose a huge five-story building which, among the flat structures around, seemed even taller—and it was astonishing who ever thought to build it on such a distant line…”