Falling in love with you in the Summer Garden in the white nights in Leningrad is the moment that propels me through life.

And that's my point: all great things worth having require great sacrifice worth giving.

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? ... I know who I am, she thought, taking his hand and turning to the altar. I am Tatiana. And I believe in, and hope for, and love Alexander for life.

Oh,to be walking through Leningrad white night after white night, the dawn to dusk all smelting together like platinum ore, Tatiana thought, turning away to the wall, again to the wall, the wall, as ever. Alexander, my nights, my days, my every thought. You will fall away from me in just a while, won't you, and I'll be whole again, and I will go on and feel for someone else, the way everyone does. But my innocence is forever gone.

Oh Alexander," she said, "what do you want from me..." "Everything!" he whispered fiercely.

I was blinded by stupidity for a brief moment in our life, for a flicker in the eternity in which you and I live, and I stumbled.

....and when Tatiana lifted her glistening eyes to him, Alexander was looking down at her with his I’ll-get-on-the-bus-for-you-anytime face.