Fred Reuss only seemed serious when he looked at his eldest son, his one love. He attended to no one’s needs, dodged all his responsibilities, avoided any type of suffering by making light of the situation, or laughing, or doing a little dance. His laughter burst forth, as irresistible as a child’s. His teasing was subtle and mischievous. With all women, and especially his wife, he played at being the spoiled child; even Madame Haas liked him. Joy followed him wherever he went. He was one of those men who seem eternally young, who don’t know how to mature, but who will suddenly grow old, become bitter, spiteful and tyrannical. But for now he was still young.

And so the evenings passed. The children hung on to the maids’ arms and aprons as they took them up to bed. A damp mist gradually covered the icy windows; the lamp glimmered, giving off smoke.

The Jews talked about business and, either to amuse themselves or to keep in practice, sold each other land, mines and houses even though the Bolsheviks had confiscated them months earlier. But to consider this type of government as here to stay would have been a sign of bad faith. They thought it would only last for two or three months. The pessimists conceded it might last through the winter. They also speculated on the rouble, the Finnish mark and the Swedish crown. The rates were so unpredictable that in the space of a week, the dark, shabby little sitting room with its soft velvet and bamboo furniture saw fortunes made and lost, while outside the snow continued to fall.

The Russians would listen, haughty, defiant, then intrigued, interested; they moved their chairs in a bit closer. At the end of the evening they would affectionately put their arms round the necks of the men they had, until then, referred to as ‘Israelites’.

Among themselves they would even say, ‘Really, they’ve been maligned. Some of them are charming.’

The Jews would say, ‘They’re far from being as stupid as people make out. The prince would have made an excellent stockbroker if he’d needed to earn his living.’

And so the two opposing races lived side by side, thrown together by the hardship of the times. And because they were linked by self-interest, habit and adversity, they were all part of the same little society, united and happy.

The smoke from the fat cigars rose slowly into the air; stacks of banknotes, whose value fell every day, were scattered around the floor; no one bothered to pick them up and they were often ripped up by the dogs. Sometimes people would go outside to stand on the terrace covered in crunchy snow and watch the faint light of fires burning in the distance.

‘Terrioki is burning,’ they would say indifferently, then go back inside, shaking off the snow that in an instant had covered their shoulders and backs.

Meanwhile, music from the little black piano rang out beneath the fingers of a tall, thin young girl with flaxen hair; she had tuberculosis and looked fragile and worn out; she spent every day on the terrace, motionless in her fur wrap and, when evening fell, she would walk across it, without stopping, without answering the friendly questions she was asked, as if she were a night owl, both attracted and frightened by the light from the living room; sitting herself down on the small green velvet piano stool, she would play continuously, moving from a Chopin nocturne to a rondo by Handel to a Ta-ra-ra-boom-diay, her cheeks burning from the fever she had every night.

The young women taught Hélène how to sew and embroider; she felt content, happy; she rediscovered the health and vigour of her childhood; the snow, the wind, the long races through the forest had returned the passionate pink glow to her cheeks; she sometimes cast a furtive, shy glance at herself in the mirror and smiled.

‘How that little girl is changing!’ the women said, looking at her affectionately. ‘She looks so healthy.’

For the moment Hélène preferred the company of this group of wise women who listened with pursed lips to Baroness Lennart, talked among themselves about their children and exchanged recipes for jam; while the glow of fires burning in the distance grew brighter through the windows, they bent their heads under the lamplight and cut delicate holes in linen doilies with little gold scissors.

On Saturday evenings they would go to the village to watch the servants and the Red Guards dance. They climbed into wide, rural sleighs lined with furs or sheepskins. It was impossible to sit up; they stretched out, leaning on one elbow, and fell on top of one another every time they hit a bump.

Madame Reuss stayed at home with the younger children, but her husband wouldn’t have missed one of the ‘balls’ for the world. He brought his eldest son George with him, but would then leave him in the care of the elderly Madame Haas in order to come and lie beside Hélène. Smiling, he tried to hold her hand in the darkness; he would gently slip off her rough wool glove and squeeze her thin fingers that trembled imperceptibly. Hélène, her heart pounding, looked at the face leaning in towards hers, lit up by the moonlight and the misty, flickering flame of the smoking lantern that hung at the side of the sleigh. An ironic, affectionate little smile hovered on Fred’s lips, on his feminine, quivering mouth; the snow settled on the fur blanket like sequins, bright little sparkling stars. Hélène closed her eyes; she was tired; she had run and played all day in the snow; when they had no toboggans, they used a sleigh with no brakes to hurtle down the hill at great speed; it always seemed to hit some frozen rock, throwing everyone into the thick, soft snow in the deep undergrowth of the forest. Hélène had rediscovered her love of dangerous games, the tomboy rough and tumble.

The dances on Saturday evenings took place in a barn whose roof was poorly constructed so you could see the dark sky dimly illuminated by the faint flickering of the stars, just like in a Christmas Nativity scene. The musicians straddled benches and played noisy fanfares on drums and brass instruments; the boys danced with loaded guns and large hunting knives with wide flat blades sheathed in stag skin that rattled in their belts as they stamped their boots on the floor.