“Tatiana realized she was too young to hide well what was in her heart butold enough to know that her heart was in her eyes.”

“Tatiana said. "Go on with Dasha. She is right for you. She is a woman and I'm-" "Blind!", Alexander exclaimed. Tatiana stood, desolately failing in the battle of her heart. "Oh, Alexander. What do you want from me..." "Everything", he whispered fiercely.”

“Tatiana lived for that evening hour with him that propelled her into her future and into the barely formed, painful feelings that she could neither express nor understand. Friends walking in the lucent dusk. There was nothing more she could have from him, and there was nothing more she wanted from him but that one hour at the end of her long day when her heart beat and her breath was short and she was happy.”

“He stared at her fists and at her face and said with upset incredulity, "You promised me you would forgive me-""Forgive you,"Tatiana hissed through her teeth, tears streaming down her face, "for your brave and indifferent face, Alexander!" She groaned in pain. "Not for your brave and indifferent heart.”

“Tatiana...you and I had only one moment..." said Alexander. "A single moment in time, in your time and mine...one instant, when another life could have still been possible." He kissed her lips. "Do you know what I'm talking about?" When Tatiana looked up from her ice cream, she saw a soldier staring at her from across the street."I know that moment," whispered Tatiana.”

“When Tatiana had been a child in Luga, her beloved Deda, seeing her depressed one summer and unable to find her way, said to her, ‘Ask yourself these three questions, Tatiana Metanova, and you will know who you are. Ask: what do you believe in? What do you hope for? But most important - ask, what do you love?”

“Please stop looking at me, she thought, afraid of his eyes and terrified of her own heart.”