It was by no means the first time we had noticed this duality in our lives. To live alongside our grandmother was already to feel you were elsewhere. She would cross the courtyard without ever going to take her place on the babushkas' bench, that institution without which a Russian courtyard is unthinkable. This did not stop her greeting them very cordially, inquiring after the health of one she had not seen for several days, and doing them little kindnesses, for example, showing them how to remove the slightly acid taste from salted milky mushrooms. But in addressing her friendly remarks to them, she remained standing. And the old gossips of the courtyard accepted this difference. Everyone understood that Charlotte was not entirely a Russian babushka.
This did not mean that she lived cut off from the world or that she clung to any social prejudice. Early in the morning we were often roused from our childish sleep by a sonorous cry that rang out in the midst of the courtyard: "Come and get your milk!" Through our dreams we recognized the voice and, above all, the inimitable intonation of Avdotia, the milkwoman, arriving from the neighboring village. The housewives came down with their cans toward two enormous aluminum containers that this vigorous peasant woman, some fifty years of age, dragged from one house to another. One day, awakened by her shout, I did not go back to sleep… I heard our door close softly and muffled voices passing through into the dining room. A moment later one of them whispered with blissful abandon, "Oh, it's so cozy here, Shura! I feel as if I'm lying on a cloud." Intrigued by these words, I peeped behind the curtain that separated off our bedroom.