" To your left, if you went up on deck, you saw a silent city, all dust and debris, exhausted by anxiety, fear, and typhus. And to your right, lay the boundless sea, the waves hurriedly and mindlessly buffeting one another, mounting one another and then dropping back down , crushed by other, newer waves that spat at them in foaming fury. "

― Teffi , Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea