“A wide and trembling silver strip of moonlight stretched for dozens of miles; the rest of the sea was black; the regular, dull sound of waves rolling along the sandy shore reached those standing at a height; silhouettes of ships even blacker than the sea itself rocked in the roadstead; one huge steamer (“probably English,” thought Vasily Petrovich) sat in the bright strip of the moon and hissed with its steam, releasing it in a ragged stream that melted in the air; damp and salty air blew from the sea; Vasily Petrovich, who had never seen anything like this before, looked with pleasure at the sea, the moonlight, steamships, ships and joyfully, for the first time in his life, breathed in the sea air...”