For the first time in my life I was looking at my country from the outside, from a distance, as if I were no longer a part of it. Transported to a great European capital, I looked back to contemplate the immensity of the cornfields and the snow-covered plains by moonlight. I was seeing Russia in French! I was somewhere else. Outside my Russian life. To be thus torn asunder was so painful and at the same time so thrilling that I had to close my eyes. I was afraid of not being able to return to myself, of being stranded in that Parisian evening. Screwing up my eyes, I inhaled deeply. The warm wind of the nocturnal steppe suffused my being once more.

That day I decided to steal her magic from her. I wanted to be one step ahead of Charlotte, to make my way into the festive city before her, join the tsar's entourage without waiting for the hypnotic halo of the turquoise lampshade.

The day was dull, gray – a sad and colorless summer's day, one of those that, amazingly, stay in the memory. The breeze, which smelled of wet earth, billowed out the white net curtains on the open window. The fabric came to life, acquired density, then fell back again, letting someone invisible enter the room.

Happy in my solitude, I put my plan into execution. I pulled out the Siberian suitcase onto the rug near the bed. The catches emitted that light clicking that we awaited each evening. I threw back the great lid and bent over those old papers like a pirate over the treasure in a chest…

At the top I recognized certain photos; I saw the tsar and tsarina again in front of the Panthéon, then on the banks of the Seine. No, what I was looking for was located farther down, in that compact mass blackened with printer's type. Like an archaeologist, I lifted up one layer after another. Nicholas and Alexandra appeared in places unknown to me.