He must be suffering, if he knows …’ she thought, and at once a bitter feeling filled her heart.

‘Well, then, if no one really cares about me I’m going to have to love myself …’

She walked over to Mademoiselle Rose. ‘Tell me something.’

‘Yes?’

‘That boy, my cousin … and her … I’ve guessed right, haven’t I?’

Mademoiselle Rose flinched and pursed her pale little lips in a violent attempt at denial. ‘No, no, Hélène,’ she murmured feebly.

But Hélène whispered passionately in her ear, ‘I know, I know, I’m telling you I know.’

A door opened behind them. Mademoiselle Rose shuddered and fearfully squeezed her hand. ‘Be quiet,’ she said softly, ‘be quiet now. If they ever realised you suspected you’d be sent away to boarding school, my poor darling, and as for me …’

Hélène lowered her eyes, frozen with fear. ‘Don’t be silly …’

But she was thinking, ‘I’d be happier at boarding school. There’s nowhere I could be more miserable than in this house! But Mademoiselle Rose, my poor Mademoiselle Rose, what would she do without me? I’m not the one who needs her any more,’ she thought suddenly with cold, bleak lucidity. ‘I don’t need to be tucked into bed, looked after, hugged … I’ve grown up, got older … How old you can feel at twelve …’

She felt a sudden yearning for solitude, for silence, for an intense melancholy that would fill her soul until it overflowed with sadness and hatred.

‘If it weren’t for Mademoiselle Rose, no one could hurt me. She’s the only thing they can use against me. But I’m all she has. I think she would die without me.’

She clenched her fists; she felt small and weak, emotionally vulnerable, and this feeling of powerlessness filled her with rebellion and despair.

She went into the schoolroom next door; it contained cupboards, built for her mother’s clothes; a slight odour of camphor came from the wardrobe where she kept her furs. Everywhere Hélène went she found her mother.

She slammed the door shut, went back into her room, walked over to the window and looked out with a kind of gloomy horror at the torrents of rain pouring out of the dark sky; tears streamed down her cheeks.

‘You know that she … Mama has always said how happy she is to have you …’ she finally said, her voice shaking.

‘I know that,’ murmured Mademoiselle Rose, ‘but …’

She was standing in the middle of the room, small and frail in her black dress. She studied Hélène’s face with sad tenderness, but gradually her eyes became glassy and vacant. She seemed to be looking for something very far away, beyond Hélène’s face, visions that only she could see. A past long gone … or the frightening future in this cold, inhospitable place: solitude, exile, old age. She sighed and whispered absent-mindedly, ‘Come along now, hang up your coat. Don’t throw your hat on the bed. Come here so I can tidy your hair …’

As always, she took solace in the most humble, everyday tasks, but she seemed to be doing them with a kind of anxiety and nervous determination that surprised Hélène. She unpacked the bags, folded the gloves and stockings and put them into a drawer, refusing to allow the servants to help her.

‘Tell them to leave me in peace, Hélène.’

‘She’s changed since the war started,’ thought Hélène.

2

1914 and 1915 came and went at a slow and deadly pace …

One evening Max came into the dining room where Hélène was sitting in a large armchair, half buried in newspapers. Wartime newspapers had entire columns left blank; no one else in the house looked at them, except for Karol who read the Stock Market listings on the last page. Max smiled. She was a funny little thing … She had a small, flat chest, slim, gangly arms poking through the short sleeves of her blue wool dress; a German-style white cambric smock with large deep pleats covered her body; her black hair was set in thick curls round her face, which was beginning to take on the cadaverous complexion of all St Petersburg children who were brought up without air, light or any form of exercise other than an hour’s ice skating on Sundays.

When she noticed him, she quickly took off a pair of glasses that made her look even older and uglier: her eyes were weak, worn out by the bright electric lights that were kept on from dawn.

He burst out laughing. ‘You wear glasses? How funny you look, my poor little thing. You look like a little old lady.’

‘I only wear them when I’m working or reading,’ she said, feeling a rush of blood to her cheeks.

He took cruel, mocking pleasure in her embarrassment: ‘You do care about the way you look! Poor little thing,’ he said again and the scornful sympathy in his voice sent a shudder of anger through Hélène’s soul.

‘Where’s your mother?’

She pointed sullenly to the next room, but at that very moment the door opened and Bella came in, wearing a lace dressing gown that barely concealed her breasts; she stretched out her hand for Max to kiss. As they stared at each other in silence, Max slowly half closed his eyes and parted his lips with a look of intense desire.

‘And they imagine I see nothing? Unbelievable,’ thought Hélène.

They went into the sitting room; Hélène sat down again in the red armchair and continued reading the papers. Was there anyone here, other than she and Mademoiselle Rose, who remembered there was a war on? Money kept pouring in; wine was overflowing. Who gave a thought to the wounded men, the women in mourning? Who heard the footsteps of troops in the street as dawn broke, the sad sound of soldiers marching towards death?

She looked at the time. Eight-thirty. Lessons and homework had filled the entire day since morning, without a moment’s rest.