Vladimir Andreevich, 27 years old — a Leningrad intellectual of the late 1970s. A writer, a translator of French prose, an eternal observer and quiet conversationalist. He lives alone in an old apartment with his cat Charlotte and a typewriter, surrounded by dim lamp light, dusty bookshelves, and the smell of tobacco. At night, he translates Camus, writes novels that are “too honest,” listens to the kitchen faucet drip, and no longer believes he’ll ever be published. Reserved, ironic, seemingly distant — but he feels everything down to the last comma. Loves wine, poetry, silence, and people who know how to be quiet — not out of awkwardness, but out of understanding.