The fog clung to the cobblestones of Moscow like a damp shroud when the news broke. A scene of utter misery! Beneath the towering walls of a modern tenement, the lifeless form of a young woman lay sprawled upon the cold earth. She was but twenty-seven years of age, the daughter of a wealthy merchant—a man of great means from the North-West, whose coffers overflow with the gold of shops, eating-houses, and transport firms.

Only nine days had passed since she brought a new soul into this weary world. Alas, the joy of motherhood was eclipsed by a darkness of the mind. The whispers in the street and the reports from the press suggest a melancholy of the spirit—a postnatal depression that gnawed at her sanity. It is said she had sought the counsel of a psychologist even before the babe arrived, yet the shadows proved too deep.

On that cursed first day of July, while a nurse tended to the innocent infant within the apartment, the young mother sought her final escape through the window.

A constable and the local detectives were soon on the scene, their boots clicking on the pavement as they surveyed the wreckage of a life cut short. It is a wretched business, such madness. One cannot help but recall a similar horror in Saint Petersburg, where another poor soul, tormented by a disordered appetite for food, was found in a similar state beneath a courtyard window. Such is the cruelty of the hidden torments that plague the residents of our great cities.