The little street was very silent and quiet and
had, like so many Petrograd streets, a decorous intimacy with the
eighteenth century ghosts thronging its air....
"Afterwards, how I was to know that street, every stone and corner of
it! It seems wonderful to me now that I trod its pavement that night
so carelessly. My destination was a square little house at the corner
on the right. Andrey Vassilievitch boasted a whole house to himself, a
rare pride in our city, as you know. When I was inside the doors I
knew at once that it was not Andrey Vassilievitch's house at all. Some
stronger spirit than his was there. Knowing him, I had expected to
find there many modern things, some imitation of English manners, some
bad but expensive pictures, a gramophone, a pianolo, a library of
Russian classics in our hideous modern bindings, a billiard-room--you
know the character. How quiet this little house was. In the little
square hall an old faded carpet, a grandfather's clock and two
eighteenth century prints of Petrograd.
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