A childhood in Petersburg, in the 1990s of the 19th century up to the revolution of 1905 - a Petersburg of grand parades, funeral ceremonies, and student unrest. Summer stays in Finland and Riga. The bookcase in the Petersburg apartment, characterized by its smell (the father deals in leather). The formative experience of the melodious Russian language of the mother. A wealth of precise memories - and yet the prose collected here by the Russian lyricist Ossip Mandelstam can only be partially called autobiographical. 'The Rustle of Time' (1925), an atmospheric portrait of pre-revolutionary Russia that cannot be conveyed in any history book; 'Feodosia' (1925), four prose pieces from a city in Crimea during the turmoil of the Civil War 1918-20; 'Travel Sketches and Memories' (1922-27) from the aftermath.