He loves the dead and follows them on their rounds even while they are still alive, shaking their hands, striking up conversations with them, piling up plenty of boards and nails and, on occasion, even throwing in trimmings and lace. In a city where starlit nights melt each year into white nights, there lived in our midst a mysterious creature, and his name was Teptyolkin. Surrounded by nymphs and satyrs and carrying a teapot in his hand, he could often be seen looking for hot water in the common dining hall. Only now and then did Teptyolkin lift up his enormous, brilliant eyes-and then he saw himself in a desert. A swirling, forlorn desert taking on a variety of forms.
Heavy sand spirals up towards the insufferable sky, then turns into columns of stone.
Particles of dust soon coalesce into trees, their miraculous fruit twinkling and gleaming. One of the most unstable pillars of dust for Teptyolkin was Marya Dalmatova. In her rustling silk dress, she loomed as an unchangeable something in a world of changeability. Whenever they met, she seemed to embrace the world in a harmonious and well-ordered unity. But this happened only occasionally.