I didn't ask the man wearing cap over a hair-net with a missing front tooth. He recommended belly pork above roast beef at the deli counter of a supermarket but I let the opportunity slip.
I did ask two elderly ladies walking arm-in-arm around a London park. One had shorter hair than the other and was taller. Both wore large tortoise-shell sunglasses. They did not speak English. My enthusiastic physical demonstration of a middle name was to no avail. Politely, they walked on.
Instead, finding myself engrossed in my book rather than the people around me, I decide to look up the author who is proving so fine a companion. According to the internet, Chekhov said that 'while there is a Tolstoy in literature, it is pleasant and agreeable to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone.' At the moment, I am inclined to agree.
(Russian middle names, such as Tolstoy's, are often 'patronymics', meaning that they are the father's first name followed by 'vich'. If you are a girl then the name is still passed down but followed by 'evna'. Thus my heroine's middle name is 'Arkadyevna' whereas her affably wayward brother's is 'Arkadyevich'.)
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