“The poet had wasted his night while others had spent it enjoying themselves and now he realised that it was lost forever. He only had to lift his head up from the lamp and look at the sky to see that the night had gone beyond return. Waiters were hurriedly jerking the cloths off the tables. The cats pacing the verandah had a morning look about them. Day broke inexorably over the poet.”

“The poet had wasted his night while others had spent it enjoying themselves and now he realised that it was lost forever. He only had to lift his head up from the lamp and look at the sky to see that the night had gone beyond return. Waiters were hurriedly jerking the cloths off the tables. The cats pacing the verandah had a morning look about them. Day broke inexorably over the poet.”

— Mikhail Bulgakov