Karol noticed nothing, but every now and again he would squeeze his wife’s bare arm affectionately in the dim light; she respected him now, and feared him, for he was the source of luxury and comfort. Yet she didn’t feel any more at ease in this house than Hélène; sometimes she was overcome with nostalgia for a hotel room, two packing cases piled in a corner and brief affairs embarked on by chance. Her Max was so impatient, so young; his beautiful body never grew tired; she encouraged his jealousy, his rage, his passion for her. Hélène found herself back among the arguments and quarrels that had been her lullabies as a very young child, but now they were between her mother and Max, and were imbued with a bitter intensity that annoyed her and which she couldn’t understand. Nevertheless, she forced herself to irritate them as much as possible; she had a derisive way of looking at Max that infuriated him; she never spoke to him; he started to hate her; he was only twenty-four and still childish enough to hate a little girl.

Hélène wandered sadly through all the rooms, waiting for dinner time. She had finished all her lessons; Mademoiselle Rose took the book from her hands. ‘You’ll ruin your eyes, Lili …’

It was true that, now and again, reading affected her too much, as if she were heavily intoxicated. But to sit in the schoolroom and do nothing, while Mademoiselle Rose sat in silence opposite her, gently nodding her head without saying a word, was beyond her. For a while she sat patiently, watching Mademoiselle’s skilful, ageing hands, which were always busy with some sewing; then, little by little, a desperate desire to do something, to have a change of scene, made her rush out of the room. Mademoiselle Rose had aged so much since the war. She hadn’t had any news of her family for three years and her brother, the one she called ‘little Marcel’, for he was her half-brother after her father’s second marriage, had disappeared in the Vosges region of France at the beginning of 1914. She had no friends in St Petersburg; she didn’t even understand the language of the country despite having lived there for nearly fifteen years. Everything upset her. Her entire life was dedicated to Hélène’s well-being, but Hélène was growing up. She needed to be cared for in other ways, but Mademoiselle Rose had known her since she was so very young, and was herself so innately reserved and with such a strong sense of propriety that she was unable to reach out to Hélène, to encourage confidences which, at that point in her life, Hélène wouldn’t have entrusted to her anyway.

Hélène protected her inner life; she hid it fiercely from sight – everyone’s sight, even from the person she loved most in the world. She and Mademoiselle Rose were bound together by a fear that neither of them dared to speak of: that Mademoiselle Rose might be sent away. Anything was possible. Their lives were ruled by Bella’s whims, by her excessively bad moods or a sarcastic remark from Max. During these deadly years Hélène did not once breathe freely; there wasn’t a single night when she went to bed feeling calm and confident. During the day, Mademoiselle Rose took Hélène to mass at the church of Notre-Dame-de-France. A French priest spoke to a small congregation of people born in this foreign land; he spoke of France, of the war, and prayed for ‘those who suffer, those who must travel, and the soldiers who have fallen on the battlefields’.

‘We’re fine,’ thought Hélène in between responses; she looked at the two low candles burning beneath the image of the Virgin Mary, and listened to the soft crackling of the wax tears that flowed and flowed, ever so slowly, until they fell on to the paving stones. She closed her eyes. At home, Bella would say, shrugging her shoulders, ‘Your Mademoiselle Rose is becoming holier-than-thou. That’s all we need …’

In church Hélène feared nothing, thought about nothing, allowed herself to be cradled by a soothing dream, but the moment she stepped outside and found herself in the dark street, walking along the gloomy, fetid canal, her heart ached with mortal anguish once more.

Sometimes Mademoiselle Rose looked around in surprise, as if she were waking from a dream. Sometimes she would murmur a few vague words, and when Hélène impatiently cried, ‘What do you mean?’ she would shudder and turn her large, deep-set eyes slowly away. ‘Nothing, Hélène, nothing,’ she would say softly.

Yet the pity that filled Hélène’s heart did not soften it; she bore the pity angrily, as if it were a burden. ‘I’m becoming horrible, now,’ she thought in despair, ‘just like everyone else.’

In the mirrors of the sitting room, lit up by the light that filtered in from beneath the office next door, Hélène studied her reflection for a long time: her face and the dark-coloured dress that looked like a black stain against the delicate light wood panelling, her thin, tanned neck that stuck out of the narrow collar of her checked dress, the gold chain and blue enamel locket that, to Hélène, were the only ‘outward signs’ of wealth. She was so bored. She believed she was unhappy because they dressed her like a little girl in short skirts, with her hair in great curls, although in Russia, a girl was already considered a woman at fourteen. As for the rest …

‘What am I complaining about?’ she thought.