All you had to do was reach out and touch it … the horses were catching it up and you could grab it in your hand. But no, the sleigh continued on its way and the faint sparkle disappeared, then returned to shimmer, mockingly.

There was a turning in the road; the light on the horizon grew brighter; the horses shook the rows of little bells hanging from their necks so that each one rang out more joyously. Hélène felt the rushing wind whistle past her ears, then the horses slowed down again and the little bells became soft and languid once more.

Hélène was sitting between her parents and opposite Max, at the back of the sleigh. She leaned forward and opened the shawl that covered her face to breathe in the air slowly, as if it were ice-cold wine. For three years she had only smelled the faint odour of rotting water in St Petersburg; now she rediscovered the pleasure of feeling clean air flow freely into her nostrils, her open mouth, deep into her entire body, right down to her heart, she felt, her heart that beat with more strength and vigour.

Karol stretched out his hand and pointed to the light that was getting closer. ‘That must be the place, don’t you think?’

A lump of snow flew away from beneath the horses’ hooves and Hélène could smell the scent of pine trees, ice, earth and wind that seemed the very breath of the north, never to be forgotten. ‘This is nice,’ she thought.

They were getting closer; they could see it now. It was a simple two-storey house made of wood. A gate covered in snow creaked open.

‘Well, here we are!’ said Karol. ‘I’ll just have a glass of vodka and get going.’

‘What? Right now?’ cried Bella, her voice quivering with joy.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have to. It would be dangerous to wait. The border could be closed at any moment.’

‘But what’s going to happen to us?’ Bella protested.

He leaned forward and kissed her. But Hélène had seen none of this. She had leapt down and was joyously stamping her feet on ground; it was as hard and shiny as a diamond. She breathed in the icy, clean air of the winter’s night; a bright reddish fire glistened through a window; the sound of a waltz echoed through the empty landscape.

Hélène felt a kind of serenity and profound peace that she had never before experienced in her short life. And immediately afterwards a childlike exhilaration, a sort of joyous passion that filled her soul, the way drinking a tonic is followed by a sense of well-being. She ran into the house. Her parents stood with their friends on the doorstep. Through the open door she could vaguely make out what they were saying:

‘The Revolution … The Reds … It will last all winter, at the very least …’

‘There are no troubles here …’

‘Lambs, sheep, that’s what the Communists are around here,’ a man proclaimed loudly. ‘May God protect them. And we have butter, flour, eggs …’

‘There’s no flour,’ a woman said, ‘you mustn’t exaggerate. As far as I’m concerned, if they told me there was any flour left in heaven, I wouldn’t believe it.’

Hélène heard them laugh; she went into the hall where, later on, she would so often stop to take off her ice skates; she could see the dining room through the open door. It was a kind of canteen with a large table set for twenty people. The floors, walls and furniture were all made of the same light, shiny wood, which gave off the delicious smell of freshly cut pine trees whose sap flows through a groove deep in the heart of their trunks. But what struck Hélène most was the joyful sound that filled the entire house; she heard children shouting, young voices, sounds she had forgotten existed. Children came in from outside, groups of them, gangs of them, carrying their sledges on their shoulders, their ice skates hanging from their necks by the laces, their cheeks bright red from the cold night air, their hair powdered with snow. Hélène glanced scornfully at them. She was much older than they were. She was fifteen.