This is a story of old Russia, a Russia before sputnik and Khrushchev and the soviet of the Russia of resplendent tsars and the hopeless characters of Dostoyevsky. Our hero Ivan Ivanovich is such a character intelligent but without hope. He is a student. His sweetheart is Anna Petrovia. We find them in the Venice of the north before it was Leningrad when it was still gloriously named St Petersburg. They are in a basement room furnished only with a chair and a stove but there is no money for firewood so they are cold. They are also hungry and they are hopeless…

Written for Suspense by: William N Robson