My grandmother returned his greeting and even exchanged some thoughtful remarks with Gavrilych. On these occasions the courtyard had a very singular appearance: the babushkas, driven away by the tempestuous appearance onstage of the drunkard, took refuge on the steps of the great wooden house that faced our apartment block; the children hid behind the trees; at the windows one could see half-curious, half-frightened faces. And down in the arena our grandmother held conversation with a tamed Gavrilych. Nor was he by any means a fool. He had long since understood that his role went beyond drunkenness and scandal. He felt that he was in some way indispensable to the psychic well-being of the courtyard. Gavrilych had become a character, a type, a curiosity – the spokesman for that unpredictable and capricious fate so dear to Russian hearts. And suddenly there was this Frenchwoman with the calm gaze of her gray eyes, elegant despite the simplicity of her dress, slim, and so different from the women of her generation, the babushkas, whom he had just driven from their perch.

One day, wanting to say something other than a simple "Good morning" to Charlotte, he gave a little cough into his great fist and rumbled, "So that's it, Sharlota Norbertovna, you're all alone here in our steppes…"

It was thanks to this clumsy remark that I found it possible to picture (as up until then I had never done) my grandmother without us, in winter, alone in her room.

In Moscow or Leningrad everything would have turned out otherwise. The motley humanity of the big city would have eclipsed what was different about Charlotte. But she had found herself in this little Saranza, ideal for living out endless days, each like the last. Her past life remained intensely present to her, as if lived only yesterday.