the last book I ever read (There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, excerpt four)

from There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister's Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya:

Misha and Karpenko had a fruitful collaboration, and at the end of March the play was performed before the faculty and students. The maestro praised the part of the horse, especially her tap dance, and the voice professor bored everyone with a lecture on how to teach singing to students with insufficient talent. The audience loved the horse and yelled “Bravo!” Misha and Karpenko, both exhausted, took a long time packing their music and texts. By the time they finished, the subway was no longer running. They climbed up to the attic, and there, on an old mattress, Misha betrayed his wife for the first time, and Karpenko became a woman. That summer their play was performed at a student festival in Finland, where Karpenko was named the best supporting actress. Her certificate, written in Finnish, was displayed in the department.