A childhood in Petersburg, in the 1990s of the 19th century until the Revolution of 1905 - a Petersburg of grand parades, funeral ceremonies, and student unrest. Summer stays in Finland and Riga. The bookshelf in the Petersburg apartment, characterized by its smell (the father deals in leather). The formative experience of the melodious Russian language of the mother. An abundance of precise memories - and yet the prose gathered 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, as it cannot be conveyed in any history book; 'Feodosia' (1925), four prose pieces from a city in Crimea during the turmoil of the Civil War from 1918 to 1920; 'Travel Sketches and Memories' (1922-27) from the aftermath.