In earlier times it used to be the name of his father, a playwright, that he would look out for on such posters, and also, from time to time, that of his mother, Victoria Berg, when she was giving recitals. On that day, for the first time, it was his own name that was being advertised. His first concert, a week from now, May 24, 1941.

The shower of rain had made the paper almost transparent, so the previous poster (for a parachute jumping competition) showed through. And the picture of Tchaikovsky, all crinkled, looked like that of a court jester. Furthermore, the concert was to take place at the ball-bearing factory's house of culture. But none of this could spoil his pleasure. The delight irradiated by this waterlogged blue sheet was much more complex than simple pride. There was the joy of the damp, luminous evening emerging, as the storm abated, with all the freshness of a picture printed from a decal. And the smell of foliage dusted with sundrenched raindrops. The joy of streets darkened by rain, along which he strolled absentmindedly, making his way back from the outskirts of the city, where the house of culture was situated, toward the center. Even the auditorium where he was due to perform, an auditorium whose walls were covered with photos of machine tools and whose acoustics left much to be desired, had seemed to him festive and airy.

That evening Moscow was airy. Light beneath his tread in the network of little streets he knew by heart. Light and fluid in his thoughts. Pausing for a moment on the Stone Bridge, he looked at the Kremlin. The restless, gray blue sky lent an unstable, almost dancing air to the cluster of domes and battlements. And to the left of it one's gaze toppled over into the immense void left by the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, dynamited several years before.

Several years… As he resumed his walk, Alexeï tried to recall the sequence of those years. The cathedral had been destroyed in 1934.