Explore "The Sowers" by Henry Seton Merriman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Karl Steinmetz had apparently been transacting business on the Vasil'yevskiy ostrov, which the travelled reader doubtless knows as the northern bank of the Neva, a part of Petersburg -- an island, as the name tells us, where business is transacted; where steamers land their cargoes and riverside loafers impede the traffic.
What the business of Karl Steinmetz may have been is not of moment or interest; moreover, it was essentially the affair of a man capable of holding his own and his tongue against the world.