Avdotia was stretched out on the floor, her arms and legs flung out, her eyes half closed. From her bare, dust-covered feet right up to her hair spread out upon the ground, her whole body lolled in deep repose. An absentminded smile colored her half-open lips. "It's so cozy here, Shura!" she repeated softly, calling my grandmother by that diminutive that people generally used in place of her unusual Christian name.

I sensed the exhaustion of this great female body slumped in the middle of the dining room. I understood that Avdotia could only allow herself such a lack of constraint in my grandmother's apartment. For she was confident of not being snubbed or disapproved of… She would finish her grueling round, bent under the weight of the enormous churns. And when all the milk was gone she would go up to "Shura's," her legs numb, her arms heavy. The floor, uncarpeted and always clean and bare, still had a pleasant morning coolness. Avdotia would come in, greet my grandmother, take off her bulky shoes, and go and stretch out on the bare floor. "Shura" brought her a glass of water and sat beside her on a little stool. And they would chat softly until Avdotia had the courage to continue on her way…

That day I heard some of what my grandmother was saying to the milkwoman as she sprawled in blissful oblivion. The two of them were talking about the work in the fields, the buckwheat harvest… And I was amazed to hear Charlotte talking about this farm life with complete authority. But above all the Russian she spoke, very pure, very refined, did not jar at all with Avdotia's rich, rough, and vivid way of talking. Their conversation also touched on the war, an inevitable topic: the milkwoman's husband had been killed at the front. Harvest, buckwheat, Stalingrad… And that evening she would be talking to us about Paris in flood, or reading us some pages from Hector Malot! I sensed a distant past, obscure – a Russian past, this time – awakening from the depths of her life long ago.