A small church. The candles have melted. The stone, washed by the rains, has turned white. Here lie those who came before. The cemetery of Saint-Genèvieve-des-Bois. Here rest dreams and prayers, tears and valor, farewells and exclamations. Staff captains and midshipmen, colonels and cadets. The White Guard, the white army, the white bone. Damp slabs are covered with grass. Russian inscriptions on a French cemetery. I touch the history with my palm, passing through the Civil War. How they dreamed of returning to Moscow, riding in on a white horse! But there was neither glory nor homeland. The heart has left, but the memory remains. Their excellencies and nobility together in Saint-Genèvieve-des-Bois. They lie, having endured their torments and walked their paths. Still Russians, seemingly ours, but rather no one's. How they, forgotten, former, cursing everything and always, longed to gaze upon her, the victorious, though incomprehensible and unforgiving, native land, and die. Noon. The birches cast shadows of tranquility. In the sky, Russian domes, and clouds, like white horses, race over Saint-Genèvieve-des-Bois.