Yon began to climb the stairs.

Below him, Tamara shook her head, touched her breasts with both hands to be sure they were still there, and went into the evening, almost bumping into a lean man wearing a workman's jacket and a cap pulled down over his eyes.

"Prastee't'e, excuse me," she said with a smile that showed even white, though a bit large, teeth, of which she was particularly proud. The man did not look at her.

Yon Mandelstem was exhausted when he reached the door to his apartment. He put down his case, glancing around the empty corridor to be sure no one was watching. No doors were cracked open. A sound that may have been bitter laughter came from one of the apartments nearby, but he could not tell which one. He got his key out, opened the door, placed his case inside, stepped in, turned on the light, and closed the door behind him.

He looked around the small room, locked the door, took off his glasses, placed them in his jacket pocket, and moved the case across the room to the desk in the corner before he began to strip off his wet clothes. He threw the clothes in the general direction of the worn but serviceable dark sofa against the wall.

Then, naked except for his sox, he moved into the second small room, which served as a bedroom. He reached over and took off his sox as he hopped toward the little cubbyhole in which a shower beckoned.

He threw back the shower door and found himself facing a grinning man with bad teeth.

There was a chill in the Crimean evening air. Georgi Vasilievich pulled up the collar of his jacket, shook his shoulders, and began walking along the czar's lane from Livadia to Oreanda. Although it was still early in the evening, the thick woods blocked out the setting sun, making it seem much later.

Vasilievich walked slowly. He told himself it was because he enjoyed the woods, the outdoors. He was a man of the city, and he wished to savor the clean air, the solitude.