"one day towards the end of april the morning was warm and gray; people walking in the streets and looking ahead did not notice that the trees in the park were splitting in many places and showing sweet, festering wounds. … and at once the avenue of the park, empty a moment before, filled with people hurrying in all directions, as if this were the hub of the city, and blossomed with women’s frocks. quick and shapely girls were hurrying … but for a few moments, while they passed the openwork basket of the avenue, which now exuded the moisture of a greenhouse and was filled with birds’ trills, they seemed to belong to that avenue and to that hour, to be the extras in a scene of the theater of spring, as if they had been reborn in the park together with the delicate branches and leaves. the park avenue seemed crowded with their refreshing hurry and the rustle of their underskirts. … ah these young, rhythmical steps, those legs hot from exercise in their new crunchy silk stockings…"