‘Good Lord, I wish she would just hurry up and leave so they stop talking about it! If only she would die!’

Every night when she said her prayers (‘Dear God, please keep Papa and Mama safe and sound …’), she replaced, in murderous hope, her mother’s name with that of Mademoiselle Rose.

‘What’s the point of shouting and making useless threats?’ she thought. ‘Why talk just for the sake of it? That woman is impossible; she’s the cross I have to bear.’

When she was talking to herself, Hélène used words that grown-ups used, words that were mature and wise, and came naturally to her, but she would have been too embarrassed to say them aloud, just as she would have found it ridiculous to walk around in grown-up finery; when she spoke, she had to translate her words into simpler, less elegant sentences, which made her sound rather hesitant and gave her a slight stutter that irritated her mother.

‘Sometimes this child seems like an idiot. You’d think she had landed on earth from the moon!’

When she was asleep, though, sleep, merciful sleep brought her back to her true age: her dreams were full of movement, energy and cries of joy.

Some while later, Karol went away and the evenings became peaceful once more. He had found a job managing a group of gold mines deep in the Siberian forest. It was the beginning of a road that would lead him to wealth. Meanwhile the house was empty. Only Grandmother stayed at home, silently wandering from one room to another, while her husband and daughter each went their own way as soon as dinner was over. Hélène enjoyed the kind of sweet, exhilarating sleep of childhood that immerses you in a pool of invigorating peace. When she woke up, the room was filled with sunshine. Mademoiselle Rose was dusting the chipped old furniture. She wore a pleated black sateen apron that protected her clothing, but underneath she was already neatly dressed in the corset and short boots she wore to town, the collar of her blouse held closed by a little gold brooch and her hair done. Never was her hair dishevelled, nor did she ever wear a loose-fitting dressing gown or those shapeless skirts that hung from the fat Russian women. She was tidy, precise, meticulous, a little ‘aloof’, somewhat scornful: a Frenchwoman through and through. She never fussed; she rarely kissed anyone. ‘Do I love you? Of course, I love you, when you’re a good girl.’ But her life revolved around Hélène; the curling of her hair, the dresses she made for her, the meals, games and walks she supervised. She never moralised; she gave only the simplest, most ordinary advice: ‘Hélène, don’t read while you’re putting on your socks. One thing at a time.’

‘Hélène, tidy up your things: you must learn how to be an organised woman, my darling. Keep your things in order and later on you will have order in your life, and the people who have to live with you will love you for it.’

And so the mornings passed; but little by little, as lunchtime approached, Hélène’s heart began to grow heavier and heavier.

Mademoiselle Rose would brush Hélène’s curls while saying quietly, ‘Make sure you behave during the meal. Your mother is in a bad mood.’

Karol had been gone for such a long time that Hélène was beginning to forget what he looked like; she didn’t even know where he was exactly. She had been left in her mother’s hands.

How Hélène hated these lunches. How many meals had ended in tears … Much later, when she recalled the dingy, dusty dining room, she would also remember the salty taste of the tears that welled up in her eyes and spilled down her face to fall in drops on to her plate, blending with the taste of the food. For a long time, meat had a slight taste of salt to her and bread was moist with bitterness.

The balcony blocked out the sad winter’s day; its light barely filtered through into the dining room. She would stare at the old imitation tapestries nailed to the walls, her eyes clouded over with tears that she held back out of pride, tears that made her voice quiver with sadness. When she was older she could never manage to recall her childhood days without also feeling those old tears filling her heart once more.

‘Sit up straight … Close your mouth … Just look at you … You look as if you’ve just been slapped with your mouth open and your bottom lip drooping … I do believe this child is turning into an idiot!… Pay attention; you’re going to knock over your glass! See, what did I tell you?… Now you’ve broken it … Here come the tears again … Yes, of course, you always make excuses for her!… Very well then, that’s just fine; I’ll no longer concern myself with Mademoiselle Hélène’s education, let Mademoiselle Hélène have the table manners of a peasant if that’s what she wants; I won’t get involved any more … Look at your mother when she’s talking to you … Look at me, will you?… And it’s for this, for this that I make sacrifices, for this that I gave up my youth, the best time of my life!…’ said Madame Karol, thinking with bitterness of this little girl she was forced to drag with her all over Europe, because otherwise you could be sure that she would barely reach Berlin before she would get an hysterical telegram from Grandmother – ‘Come back. The child is ill.’ – a cold or a sore throat forcing her to retrace the steps she’d only made the night before, and with so much pleasure. The child … The child … It was all they ever talked about, all of them: her husband, her parents, her friends: ‘You have to make sacrifices for your child … Think of your child, Bella …’

A child, a living reproach, an embarrassment … She was well cared for. What else did she need? Later on, wouldn’t even she be better off having a young mother who understood life? ‘My own mother spent her whole life complaining. Was that any better?’ she thought, remembering with bitterness the gloomy house, a woman who was old before her time, her eyes red from crying, who said nothing but ‘Eat. Don’t wear yourself out. Don’t run …’ A drooling old woman who stifled all joy and love, who prevented the young from enjoying life … ‘I wasn’t happy,’ she mused, ‘so they can at least let me be happy now; I’m not hurting anyone.