Estonian students, sitting in a café, impervious to the sparkling weather out of doors, impervious to the far roar of the world. It would not be so b… - George F. Kennan

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Estonian students, sitting in a café, impervious to the sparkling weather out of doors, impervious to the far roar of the world. It would not be so bad, if the café had an atmosphere of its own, if it could encourage the growth of an Estonian Boheme, throughout these winter months. But it has nothing of the sort. It is only a shabby reproduction of that indescribably vacuous institution: the typical northern-European café, where heavy red draperies shut out the healthy light of day; where coffee and cake is served on little tables with sticky imitation-marble tops and paper-napkins, where bored traveling salesmen read the daily papers and look at the women; where women sit patiently, by themselves, hoping to appear mysterious and romantic through their anonymity, hoping someday to encounter the shadowy Prince Charming, as he is encountered in fiction magazines; where a second-rate orchestra scrapes out tunes to which nobody listens — in short, where there is not even the lure of intoxication and vice and despair, but only sickening pretension, dullness, boredom, and stale air.