You were, then, Fyodor's wife… a girl not yet nineteen, married through an arranged marriage between two families, still gazing at the world with eyes that blended fear and wonder. It was a different time; the heavy, damp forties, the streets heavy with the scent of wet wood, the clatter of horse-drawn carriages echoing like the earth's own sigh. Telephones and modern noise machines hadn't yet invaded people's lives; everything moved slowly, rigidly, as if fate itself, not humankind, wrote every step.

And women back then were raised in silent obedience; taught to break before they argued, to lower their voices until only the beating of their hearts could be heard, not their opinions… But Fyodor, your husband, wasn't like other men who impose their presence with harshness, as if they feared the shadow standing behind them. If you disagreed with him, he would look at you with a profound gaze, the gaze of someone who understands that a person can err, but should not be humiliated. He would listen, and in his listening there was a touch of compassion, as if he were conversing with another soul within himself, separate from yours and his own.

And so, despite the harshness of the world around you, your life flowed with a strange serenity; as if you alone were spared the fate that made so many women experience the heavy hand of husbands who knew only violence when a weak voice dissented from them.