It was in Utkin's grandfather's izba that the eruption took place. We ll began shouting at the same time, waving our arms and leaping around, each eager to portray the film in the most lively manner. We roared, as we struggled in the nets flung by our enemies; we snatched the glamorous creature from the sadistic clutches of the executioners as they prepared to cut off one of her breasts; we machine-gunned the walls before rolling onto a divan. We were at one and the same time the spy in the telephone booth and the shark pointing its aggressive snout, and even the can of fish soup!

We were transformed into a pyrotechnic display of gestures, grimaces, and yells. We were discovering the ineffable language of our new universe. That of Belmondo!

In any other circumstance, Utkin's grandfather, a man with the corpulence of a weary and melancholy giant, whose slow gait and white hair made him reminiscent of a polar bear, would have quickly rebuked us. But on this occasion he watched our triple performance in silence. The three of us together must have succeeded in re-creating the atmosphere of the film. Yes, he must have pictured the underground labyrinth Ht by the dismal flames of torches, and the wall to which the glamorous martyr was chained. He saw a monstrous figure, squat and shriveled, cackling with perverse and impotent lust, as he drew closer to his scantily clad victim and raised a pitilessly glittering blade over her delectable breast. But a mingled roar came from our three outraged throats. The hero, triple in his strength and beauty, flexed his muscles, broke the chains, and flew to the aid of the gorgeous prisoner…

The polar bear screwed up his eyes mischievously and left the room.

Samurai and I broke off our theatricals, thinking we had really offended Grandfather too much. Only Utkin remained in his actor's trance, shuddering as if it were he who risked losing a breast.

Grandfather reappeared in the room, grasping the neck of a bottle of champagne with his great knotty fingers. My eyes opened wide. Samurai uttered a resounding "Aha!" And Utkin emerged from his epileptic fit and summed up all our emotions in a single exclamation, still talking about the film: "Well, that's the West for you!

Grandfather put three chipped china cups and a thick glass tumbler on the table.

"I've been saving this bottle for a friend," he explained, liberating the cork from the wire top. "But he, poor fellow, had the odd idea of dying in the meantime. He was a friend from the front…"

We hardly heard his explanations. The cork leaped out with a joyful crack, there was a moment of cheerful urgency – abundant froth, fierce popping of bubbles, a white surge spilling onto the tablecloth. And finally the first mouthful of champagne, the very first in our lives…

It was only years later, thanks to that bitter clarification of the past that comes with age, that we would remember the friend from the front… But on that evening of the thaw long ago there was only this icy tickling inside our scorched throats, which caused tears of joy to well up. A happy weariness like that of actors after a first night. And Utkin's summary, still ringing in our ears: "Well, that's the West for you!"

Yes, the Western World was born in the sparkle of Crimean champagne, in the middle of a big izba buried in the snow after a French film several years old.

It was the Western World at its most authentic, because engendered in vitro. In that thick glass tumbler that had been washed by whole waves of vodka. And also in our virgin imaginations. In the crystalline purity of the air of the taiga.

It was there, the West. And that night we dreamed of it with open eyes in the bluish darkness of the izba… And three shadowy figures appeared on that southern promenade, whom the summer visitors certainly will not have noticed. These three figures walked around a telephone booth, strolled past a café terrace, and, with their timid gaze, followed two young creatures with beautiful tanned legs…

Our first steps in the Western World.

We were flying through the taiga, stretched out along the trunks of cedar trees on the trailer of a powerful tractor, like those that carried rockets in the army. The rough bark under our backs, the sky sparkling above our eyes, the silvery shadows of the forest on either side of the road. The sunny air inflated our sheepskin coats like sails and shot us through with the smell of resin.

It was strictly forbidden to transport people on trailers, especially when loaded. But the driver had accepted us with cheerful nonchalance. It was the first sign of the changes brought into our existence by Belmondo…

The window of the cabin was lowered, so soft did the air seem that morning. And all along the road we could hear the driver telling the story of the film to his passenger, the foreman of the loggers. Lying flat out on the trees, we followed his narration, delivered with exclamations, oaths, and broad gestures, as his hands perilously left the steering wheel.

From time to time he uttered a particularly ringing cry. "He's got his first tooth, my boy! Ha ha ha! You know what I mean? That's it. My wife wrote to me…"

And he resumed his narrative: "So then he pulls on the chains with all his strength, like that… Sure thing, you could hear his bones cracking. Wow! And bingo! he chucks them in the air. And the other one, with his blade, was just a couple of steps away from the girl. And she – I can't tell you what a great pair of tits she's got. And this bastard wants to cut one of them off. You know what I mean? So the guy goes in right under him and ker-pow! No, no, don't worry. I'm holding the wheel."

And again he interrupted his story to proclaim his fatherly pride: "Hey, the little rascal! His first tooth… Milka writes: 'I can't feed him anymore – he bites my breast till it bleeds' Ha ha ha! He's just like his dad."

The world seemed wonderfully transfigured. All we needed was a miracle to be finally convinced of it. And the miracle came. It was close to the Devil's Bend, even more dangerous under the drifts from the snowstorm. At the place where we should have been moving cautiously, making a slow descent to the bank of the Olyei. But the story was reaching its culmination…

The tractor with its heavy trailer hurtled down the slope, without even slowing down, and plunged out over the thin ice undermined by warm springs…

There was a yell, quickly stifled, from inside the cabin; an oath uttered by Samurai. And then several apocalyptic and interminable seconds, filled with the creaking of the ice giving way under the wheels…

We came to ourselves a hundred yards farther along, already on the other bank. The driver stopped the engine and jumped out into the snow. His passenger followed him. The white surface of the river was incised by two black tracks that were slowly filling with water…

In the absolute silence, nothing could be heard but a faint whistling coming from the engine. The sky had quite a new sparkle to it.

Later, no doubt, the driver and the foreman would talk about a crazy stroke of luck. Or about the speed of the tractor, which had been flying along, scarcely touching the ground. But without their admitting it to themselves, the ruins of the church on the highest part of the riverbank would come into their minds. And without knowing how to think about it, let alone talk about it, they would muse on that remote childish presence (the first tooth!). Maybe this had mysteriously sustained the heavy machine as it crossed the fragile ice…

But we preferred to believe in a simple miracle; from now on this would be so natural in our lives.

On my return, everything in our izba seemed strange to me. It was the strangeness of familiar objects staring at me with curiosity; they seemed to be waiting for my first move. The day before yesterday I had left that room in the morning, to go to school. Since then there had been the switch operator's shanty; the station waiting room; the snowstorm; the house of the red-haired woman; the bridge; the truckdriver… I shook my head, overcome with a singular dizziness. Yes, then my return across the snow-filled valley, the rusty nails of the hanged men…