‘See you soon,’ he cried, his voice shaking. ‘We’ll come to see you in St Petersburg! Tell your mama to invite us soon.’

‘I wouldn’t count on it, poor Grandfather,’ murmured Hélène. She was certain the old man understood the situation even better than she did. She couldn’t imagine the fury and regret he would feel when going back home to the empty house, followed by his wife who moaned and wept quietly.

‘It’s my turn now,’ he would think. ‘My turn. Once I was the one who ran off to follow my whims, to enjoy myself, and left everyone behind. But now that I’m old and running out of steam, I’m the one who’s being left behind.’ And turning towards his wife, he deigned to wait for her for the first time in his life, even though he banged his cane against the ground and grumbled, ‘Come on, then, hurry up, slow coach!’

‘Exeunt’ grandfather and grandmother, Hélène thought with the dark sense of humour she’d inherited from her father.

Meanwhile, the car had stopped in front of a large, beautiful house. The Karols’ apartment was constructed in such a way that you could see right through all the rooms from the entrance hall; from the large open doors stretched a series of gold-and-white reception rooms. Hélène bumped into the corner of an enormous white piano, caught sight of her pale, confused face reflected in the many mirrors and finally made her way into a smaller, darker room to her mother. She was standing up, leaning against a table; beside her sat a young man whom Hélène had never seen before.

‘Stuffed into a corset at three o’clock in the afternoon,’ thought Hélène, remembering her mother’s loose-fitting dressing gowns and dishevelled hair; she looked up and immediately spotted how many new rings she wore on her pale fingers, saw the elegant dress, her slim figure, how happy and passionate her harsh face looked; she saw all of it, enclosed it within her heart and never, ever forgot it.

‘Hello, Hélène. Was the train early, then? I wasn’t expecting you so soon.’

‘Hello, Mama,’ Hélène murmured.

She could never clearly pronounce both syllables whenever she said ‘Mama’; she had difficulty getting the word out through her pursed lips; she said the last syllable with a kind of quick groan that she wrenched from her heart.

‘Hello.’

The painted cheek lowered itself to her level; she kissed it carefully, instinctively trying to find a spot that wasn’t covered in powder or rouge.

‘Don’t mess up my hair. Aren’t you going to say hello to your cousin? Don’t you recognise your cousin, Max Safronov?’

A smile of triumph passed over Bella’s painted mouth, which was as thin and red as a trickle of blood.

Hélène suddenly remembered Lydia Safronov’s horse-drawn carriage, which she sometimes came across on the streets of the town where she’d been born; she pictured the stiff woman with her little serpent’s head poking out of the fur stole she wore, recalled her dark eyes and the cold way she looked at her.

‘Max, here? Oh, they really must be very rich,’ she thought.

She was fascinated by how pale the young man looked; it was the first time she ’d ever seen the pale skin common to the inhabitants of St Petersburg, skin that seemed to have no blood at all, as pallid as a flower growing in a cave. He had a haughty, affected manner, a slim, delicate nose slightly curved into an eagle’s beak, wide green eyes and blond hair that was already receding towards his temples, even though he was barely twenty-four years old.

He lightly stroked Hélène’s cheek with one finger, then pinched her upraised chin. ‘Hello, my little cousin. How old are you now?’ he asked, clearly not knowing what he should say to her and staring at her with his bright, mocking green eyes.

He didn’t listen to the reply.

‘Look at how she stoops,’ he murmured. ‘You should stand up straight, my girl. When my sisters were your age they were a head taller than you and stood up as straight as an arrow.’

‘It’s true,’ cried Bella, annoyed, ‘just look at your posture! You should scold her, Mademoiselle Rose.’

‘The journey has worn her out.’

‘You always make excuses for her,’ said Bella, irritated.

She slapped Hélène between her slim shoulder blades as soon as they slumped. ‘You’re not making yourself look any more attractive, my poor girl. No matter how often you scold her, she simply won’t listen. And see how sickly she looks, Max. Your sisters seem so athletic, so strong.’

‘It’s the English education, you know,’ Max murmured in English. ‘Cold baths and bare knees and not encouraged to feel sorry for themselves. She doesn’t look like you, Bella.’

‘How’s Papa?’ asked Hélène.

‘Well, Papa is fine; he came home very late, so you’ll see him before you go to bed; he’s very busy.’

They said no more. Hélène stood as stiff and straight as if she were in a parade, not daring to leave or sit down.

‘All right, then,’ Bella finally whispered, sounding weary and annoyed. ‘Don’t just stand there staring at me with your mouth hanging open. Go to your room; go and see your bedroom …’

Hélène went out, wondering with anguish what this stranger would bring her, happiness or misery, for she knew very well that from that moment on he would be the true master in her life. Later on, when she had grown up and remembered the way her mother’s face leaned towards his, their silence, her mother’s smile, everything she had noticed, guessed, sensed in a single look, she would sometimes think, ‘It’s impossible … I was only twelve, after all. The truth is that I came to understand gradually and now I’ve convinced myself that I saw everything in a flash. I understood what was happening little by little, and not in the space of an instant. I was a child and they didn’t say anything that day; they weren’t even sitting close to each other …’ And yet whenever a colour, a sound, a scent took her back to the past, whenever she managed to remember the exact shape of Max’s face when he was young, she immediately felt her child’s soul rise up within her, as if awakened after a long sleep, whispering, passionately calling to her: ‘You also cast your childhood aside! Don’t you remember how you had the body of a young girl but a heart as old, as mature as it is today? So I clearly had good reason to feel sorry for myself: you had abandoned me, and even now you have forgotten all about me …’

On that day, that sad day, she knew for certain they were having an affair; she had feared for herself; she had immediately hated that scornful young man who had said, ‘She doesn’t look like you, Bella.’

‘What about Papa? I’m only thinking about myself, I’m so self-centred.