The Fire

“Our street—the Malo-Suetinskaya—slopes sharply down from the hill to the river on both sides of a ravine, a descent paved, as if in mockery, unevenly with large cobblestones. Along the embankments the ravine is thickly overgrown with burdock, wormwood, and horse sorrel; in the midst of dusty thickets, among worn-out stanchions, fragments of dishes, and broken glass, blue flowers of bindweed, pink clover tufts, golden stars of buttercups, and a shaggy dandelion hide sadly…”