The Quiet American

In the days when people in Paris went to fetch water from a fountain, when almost in every district there were corners that looked like villages, on a quiet, shady street near the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where musketeers once lived, there lived one woman. She had no idea that great upheavals were coming—those that would redraw the capital of the world, and the scaffolds of workers sent by a zealous prefect would smash old Paris. Just as the residents of quiet Moscow lanes didn’t know that someone’s resolute hand had already drawn a straight line that split old Arbat in two. But what should you do if you’re destined to live in an age of change?..