Stolen Souls

Wrapped in furs until only my nose and eyes were visible, I was walking along the Nevski Prospekt in St. Petersburg one winter’s evening, and almost involuntarily turned into the Dominique, that fashionable restaurant which, garish in its blaze of electricity, is situated in the most frequented part of the long, broad thoroughfare. It was the dining-hour, and the place, heated by high, grotesquely...