judgement; they bought gold: in bars, in ingots, but most especially they bought shares, piles and piles of them, representing holdings in banks, tankers, pipelines and in diamonds that still lay buried beneath the ground. Pieces of paper poked out of the furniture. They made the walls and beds bulge; they were hidden in the servants’ rooms, in the study, at the backs of cupboards and, when spring came, in wood-burning stoves; wads of shares were sewn into the fabric of armchairs and the men who came to the Karols’ house took turns sitting on them, warming them with the heat of their bodies as if they were trying to hatch golden eggs. In the corner of the sitting room great bundles of paper were rolled up in the Savonnerie carpet decorated with garlands of roses; they rustled whenever there was a draft. Hélène sometimes amused herself by stepping on them to make them crunch, the way you crush dead leaves beneath your shoes in autumn. The white piano, its cover closed, shimmered faintly in the shadows; on the walls were motifs in gold: reed-pipes, bagpipes, hats in the style of Louis XV, shepherd’s crooks, ribbons, bouquets of flowers, all gathering dust. Hélène’s parents, the ‘businessmen’ and Max spent every evening in the stuffy little roomthat Karol used as an office. It contained nothing but a telephone and a typewriter. They piled in there, happy to breathe in the thick cigar smoke, happy to hear the bare floorboards creak beneath their feet, happy to look at the plain walls that were thick enough to muffle their discussions.
Sitting side by side in that narrow room, Max and Bella took advantage of the chaos and the dim light, which came from a single light bulb hanging down on a wire, to press their warm thighs, their warm bodies against each other. 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.
Sitting side by side in that narrow room, Max and Bella took advantage of the chaos and the dim light, which came from a single light bulb hanging down on a wire, to press their warm thighs, their warm bodies against each other. 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.
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