Night Owls

'I decided that my trip had evidently been in vain, since nothing of interest could possibly occur on this visit. I was mistaken.'Condemned to sleeplessness by the chatter permeating his guesthouse room, a forlorn traveller turns his ear to the riotous tale spun by the garrulous, meddlesome, inane and utterly unprincipled M-a Mart-novna next door. Her exuberant deformations of morality and language scandalized Tsarist society, and she remains one of Russian literature-s most uproarious anti-heroes.