the play of light delicately dappling the white topside of a yacht

That was the momentary aura, and it felt almost deliberate, as if someone were having fun inventing this girl, this conversation, this small Russian restaurant in a foreign port—an aura of dear workaday provincial Russia, and right away, by some miraculous, secret association of thoughts, the world appeared grander to Nikitin, he yearned to sail the oceans, to put into legendary bays, to eavesdrop everywhere on other people’s souls.