So I must have sat inside. He said he would like to go outside. We sat at a table in the open air. There is a slab of slightly wavy chestnut brown hair falling from a side part to the jaw, and chestnut brown eyes, and a curling red mouth, it is my idea anyway of a 19th-century Russian. I imagine him galloping about the Caucasus or strolling up and down the Nevsky Prospect in a wasp-waisted uniform, challenging people to duels. Another time, another place.