She runs to the post office and sends a telegram to Ivanovo. At ten kopecks a word, she must be brief: “Accepted,” she writes. “Kisses. Sasha.” She imagines her mother’s face when she receives it. At first, her mother may feel angry to read the judgment that instantly shatters her plans for Sasha and legitimizes such an unworthy profession as acting. But at the same time, Sasha knows, her mother won’t be able to deny feeling something that resembles pride. For a minute, as her mother stares at the words of the telegram, Sasha imagines the anger and the pride bumping against each other, with pride, at least in her mind, unexpectedly taking the upper hand.

She knows that Grandma will smile and Grandpa will glare. She knows that Grandma will busy herself in the kitchen, smiling furtively as she rolls the dough for pirozhki, while Grandpa will storm out into the yard and furiously start pulling dandelions out of a bed full of blooming strawberries. Sasha sees her telegram spreading the word to their street, to their neighbors in the other half of the house, as they munch on the news that the girl who used to run barefoot around the yard chasing chickens is now in the country’s capital, just steps from Red Square, learning to become an actress.

She sees Andrei, or maybe she doesn’t see Andrei. He is elusive: what he says does not always match what is reflected in his eyes or what may be brewing in his heart. She knows how badly she has hurt him, but instead of brooding, she also knows she must focus on the enormity of the task before her. It is only by an act of sheer will that she can push aside, albeit temporarily, the guilt that presses on her heart.

She sits in her dorm room, a mirror propped up on the desk against a stack of textbooks. There is nothing interesting about her face that she can see: big gray eyes her acting teacher calls photogenic, a pudgy nose that her roommate Sveta says will always typecast her into character roles, bangs that fall down to her curved eyebrows Sasha has recently plucked with tweezers. This is what art demands, said Sveta, who has already starred in a movie, so Sasha believes her. She sits before a mirror, ruthlessly yanking little hairs out of her face, biting her lip with each tug.