Adult men are like children

And right next to it is a shop. The windows are large, spanning an entire wall. And in the windows, there are books laid out (“About how the old lady bought ink,” 1928-29).

Although the Singer House is not explicitly named in the story, Kharms describes it precisely. In the House of Books on Nevsky, where the children's literature editorial office was located, the grown men sometimes behaved like children. Alexey Panteleev recalled how he and his co-author of “The Republic of ShKID,” Grisha Belykh, first wandered into the former Singer House and encountered adults energetically crawling on all fours—editors Schwartz and Oleynikov, who, as it turned out, were pretending to be camels. Kharms wrote: “Alexey Tolstoy stripped naked and, stepping out onto the Fontanka, started neighing like a horse. Everyone said, ‘Here neighs a great contemporary writer.’ And no one touched Alexey Tolstoy.”

During the Soviet era, this building housed the editorial offices and publishing houses of major magazines and newspapers, including “Chizh” and “Yozh.” Later, it housed Detizdat (Children’s Publishing House). Kharms seized this opportunity to earn money, writing poems for children, making funny captions under drawings, and inventing charades. Once, Schwartz came up with a “hooligan advertisement” for the magazine: “Either ‘Yozh’ for your son, or a knife in the back.” But he complained to Kharms that he didn’t like the phrase “in the back — knife.” To which Kharms responded instantly: “Either ‘Yozh’ for your son, or a knife in the back.” However, he always came here in different moods, depending on whether he was paid royalties or not. In 1937, when the poem “A Man Left the House” appeared, Kharms was not published for a year. The situation was desperate: his diary contains notes about how he and Marina had their last meal—sausages with macaroni—because there was no money left and none was expected.

By the way, the famous photograph of the writer wearing a cap and smoking a pipe was taken on the balcony of the House of Books on Nevsky.

Source:
https://kudago.com/spb/list/peterburg-daniila-harmsa/
https://mr-7.ru/articles/45683/
https://history1.ru/fates/tpost/j8xtch48y9-sherlok-holms-po-russki