Tuesday, May 11, 2010

In the open-air restaurant of Brunn's Park

"YOU ask how I happened to go to Siberia to study music," said my Russian friend Hartveld, as we sat smoking in the open-air restaurant of Brunn's Park, Helsingfors. "I might reply by asking you how you happened to go there to study penal servitude. I presume the inducement in both cases was the same. You thought you would find, among the political exiles in Siberia, characters, conditions and stories of personal adventure that would be novel and interesting, and that you could use as literary material."

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