Pietro Gandolfo, inside the old sedan, rumbled by, hidden by the dunes and the early morning qobar, dry fog of the Nile. He fidgeted nervously. He had no idea what to expect ahead.

“Surname?” ¶ “Blagodarev.” ¶ A handy name, easy to get hold of, and the ready way he gave it warmed the cockles of the heart.

The rotations of memory are the commencement of those wonderful revolvings of the intellectual faculties by which the process of reason is carried on.

For Lu was the girl she seemed, and Wang was a boy — a boy, dressed in girl's clothes, even to the crimson ribbons of maidenhood begaying his hair: …