She was Saranza: transfixed at the edge of the steppes in profound astonishment before the boundlessness that opened at its gates. Winding, dusty streets that constantly climbed up hillsides; wooden fences beneath the greenery of gardens. Sun, sleepy vistas. And passersby who, appearing at the end of a street, seemed to be perpetually approaching without ever drawing level with you.

My grandmother's building was situated at the edge of the town in the "Western Glade" district: a coincidence (West Europe- France) that amused us greatly. According to the plan of an ambitious governor, this three-story apartment block, built in the second decade of the century, was intended to inaugurate a whole avenue bearing the imprint of the modern style. Yes, the building was a faint replica of the fashion of the turn of the century. It was as if all the sinuosities, twists, and curves of that architecture had flowed in a stream from its European source and, diluted and partly effaced, had reached the depths of Russia. And in the icy wind of the steppes this flow had become frozen into an apartment block with strange oval bull's-eye windows and ornamental rose stems around the doorways… The enlightened governor's scheme had foundered. The October Revolution put a stop to all these decadent tendencies of bourgeois art. And this building – a narrow segment of the dreamed-of avenue – had remained the only one of its kind. Indeed, after many repairs, it retained only a shadow of its original style. It was in particular the official campaign of struggle against "architectual excesses," which we had witnessed as young children, that had dealt it the death blow. All of it seemed "excessive": workmen had torn off the rose stems, condemned the bull's-eye windows… And, as there are always individuals who want to make a show of their zeal (it is thanks to them that campaigns really succeed), the downstairs neighbor had excelled himself in detaching the most flagrant architectural superfluity from the wall: the faces of two pretty bacchantes, who had exchanged melancholy smiles on each side of our grandmother's balcony To achieve this, he must have performed feats of great daring, standing up on his own windowsill with a long steel tool in his hand.