Of all the things Papa loathed about capitalist Oblya, he loathed none more than the ballet theater. He railed against it more than he did the Ionik merchant sailors, who he said brought with them the fish-stink of the east, and more than he did the Yehuli, who he claimed were out to drain the city of its wealth the way an upyr sucked the blood of virgin women. He hated the cotton mills and the day laborers, and the factories that chuffed black smoke into the sealskin sky. But he hated the ballet theater most. Fodder for wealthy hags whose husbands won’t touch them, and wealthy men who are too
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