From the inside flap:

Whither will I wander? Not to seek comfort among the privileged, in amber palaces or proud piazzas. Nor can I pretend to any interest in a spasm of applause from a febrile few among the faithless crowd--a vain deceit. My humble voice would ill be heard when pitted against a fearsome flapping on hands or the brittle pomp of royal fanfare.
The Muses have perished; withered are the laurels once bestowed upon poets rich in their possession, if not in genius; the shepherds have lost their song. Who can find it amid the flocks and herds, for it is with them, alas, we must struggle--ragged in our hopelessness among sterile meadows, while we roil crystal springs with muddy feet. The natural world revolts against a poet-less society: blink-eyed birds take flight from their nests with nary a song to caress the ear of entwined romantics; yon trees cast pitiful fruit upon the earth, and sneer with devil-take-you confidence behind bent limbs. Delicate flowers swoon under fierce rays of a brutal sun, where once the catchfly graced the hedge; the birdwood hangs its tendrils over the ragged robin in shameless insolence. Bees stay in the darkness of their hives, and let perish unperfected the honey they had begun. Did we once laugh, love, and quarrel idiotically as children do, only to cast these moments into the void which swallowed them and every semblance of us whole? Everything is lost; all hope is vanquished; every consolation is dead. This is the labyrinth of misery Petroushka hopes to escape. But where to go?