It was in picturing this woman's handbag amid the crosses, under the Siberian sky, that I began to have a feeling for the incredible destiny of things. They traveled; beneath their commonplace exterior they logged the different periods of our lives, linking moments that were very far apart.
As for the marriage of my grandmother to the people's judge, doubtless I did not notice all the historical piquancies that the adults could detect in this. Charlotte 's love, my grandfather's courtship of her, the couple they made, so unusual in that Siberian country – of all that I grasped only a fragment. Fyodor, his tunic well pressed, his boots gleaming, makes his way toward the place for their crucial rendezvous. A few paces behind him his clerk, the young son of a priest, conscious of the gravity of the moment, walks slowly, carrying an enormous bunch of roses. A people's judge, even when in love, must not look like a mere operatic suitor. Charlotte sees them from afar, understands at once the scene that has been prepared, and with a mischievous smile accepts the bouquet that Fyodor takes from the hands of the clerk. The latter, intimidated but curious, backs away.
Or perhaps this fragment as well: the one and only wedding photo (all the others, those in which my grandfather appeared, would be confiscated at the time of his arrest): their two faces, slightly inclined toward one another, and on the lips of an incredibly young and beautiful Charlotte the smiling reflection of the "petite pomme"…