‘I’d like to kill them,’ she murmured.

Outside, a group of anarchist terrorists in an old Ford decorated with a skeleton’s head drove past her room, making the little white bookcase and the silly statuettes that decorated it shake. They fired a machine gun into the empty streets. But no one was listening to them. Behind closed windows exhausted men, reluctantly resigned to everything, were sleeping.

All next day Bella refused to say a word in Hélène’s presence. Karol wasn’t at home. An innate sense of propriety prevented Hélène from saying a word about Mademoiselle Rose. Another day passed. Mademoiselle Rose was packing her trunks. Yet life carried on so normally, just as in certain delirious dreams when terror merges with familiar details. Hélène learned her lessons; she sat opposite her mother for meals; the electricity had been cut off for weeks; the dim flame of a candle flickered at the back of the enormous dark room. Between noon and two o’clock Hélène and Mademoiselle Rose went out. It was rare for shots to be fired at that time of day, so the streets were quiet.

They could see a lamp that had accidentally been left on at the back of an abandoned house whose windows were nailed shut with planks of wood. The fog filled Hélène’s mouth and slipped down into her throat; it tasted heavy and sickly. That day, as they walked along, Hélène suddenly took hold of Mademoiselle Rose’s hand, shyly squeezed it and held on to her slim fingers in their black wool gloves.

‘Mademoiselle Rose …’

Mademoiselle Rose shuddered, but said nothing and let go of Hélène’s hand, as if that physical contact had interrupted some faraway sound, a sound that she, and she alone, could hear. Hélène sighed and fell silent. The air was ashen and grew thicker with every passing moment. At times, the street was so dark that Mademoiselle Rose became a shadowy figure lost in the mist; Hélène stretched out her hand in anguish and felt for her coat; then they continued walking, in silence. Every now and again a street lamp, lit as if by some miracle, cast its cloudy light over them, and in the opaque air, beneath a flickering mist, she could see Mademoiselle Rose’s thin face, her pursed little mouth, her black velvet hat. In the darkness they could smell the rancid odour of the canals; no one had bothered to clean them since the February Revolution; no one bothered to repair their stones; the city was crumbling beneath the weight of the water, slowly disintegrating, becoming a city of smoke, illusions and fog, retreating into a void.

‘I’m tired,’ said Hélène. ‘I want to go home.’

Mademoiselle Rose said nothing. Yet even though she let out no sound, it seemed as if her lips had moved. In any case the fog muffled everyone’s voices.

They continued walking.

‘It must be late,’ thought Hélène.

She was hungry.

‘What time is it?’ she asked.

No reply. She wanted to look at her wristwatch but it was too dark. They passed by the large clock at the Winter Palace; Hélène slowed down to try to hear it ringing, but Mademoiselle Rose kept on walking; Hélène had to run to catch up with her. She later remembered that the clock was broken and no longer chimed.

The fog had suddenly become so thick that she was finding it difficult to keep up with Mademoiselle Rose. But the street was very narrow; she soon caught hold of the familiar woollen coat. ‘Wait for me, won’t you; you’re walking so fast … I’m tired; I want to go home.’

She waited for a reply, in vain.

‘I want to go home,’ she said again, sounding frightened and upset.

Then, suddenly, she stopped, frozen, as Mademoiselle Rose started talking to herself, quietly, sensibly. ‘It’s late, but the house is quite close by. Why haven’t they lit the lamps? Mama never forgets to put a lamp on the window ledge when it starts getting dark. That’s where we sit, my sisters and I, to sew and read.