The Wine of Solitude Read Online Free Page A

velvet ribbon round her neck, short-sleeved tops of white linen or fine black wool, straight skirts and button-up boots with long, pointy tips. She was rather vain when it came to her small feet and her shapely waist that she pulled tightly in with a suede belt decorated with a dull silver buckle. She was calm and wise, very sensible and modest; for many years she had retained an innocent cheerfulness, despite the apprehension and sadness she felt about Hélène’s strange, wild nature, about this chaotic householdin this untamed country. Hélène loved only her, no one else. In the evening, when the lamp was lit, Hélène would sit at her little desk and draw or cut out pictures, while Mademoiselle Rose talked about her childhood, her brothers and sisters, the games they had played and the Ursuline convent where she had been raised.
    ‘When I was little I was called Rosette …’
    ‘Were you good?’
    ‘Not always.’
    ‘Better than me?’
    ‘You’re very good, Hélène, except now and again. You’d think you sometimes had a demon in you.’
    ‘Am I intelligent?’
    ‘Yes, but you think you’re more intelligent than you are … which won’t make you any better or any happier. You must be good and brave. Not to do extraordinary things, you’re just an ordinary little girl. But to accept God’s will.’
    ‘Yes. But Mama’s evil, isn’t she?’
    ‘What an idea, Hélène … She’s not evil; it’s just that she has always been spoiled – by her mother, then by your father, who loves her so much, and also spoiled by life. She has never had to work or give in to anyone … Come, now, try to draw my picture …’
    ‘I can’t. Sing, won’t you, Mademoiselle Rose, please.’
    ‘You know all my songs.’
    ‘That doesn’t matter. Sing “You may have taken Alsace and Lorraine but in spite of you we will always be French”.’
    Mademoiselle Rose sang often; her voice wasn’t very strong but it was clear and melodious. She would sing ‘Marlbrough is off to war’, ‘Love’s pleasures last but a moment’ and ‘I sigh beneath your window, day will soon behere’ … When she said the word ‘love’, she, too, sometimes sighed and stroked Hélène’s hair. Had she ever been in love? Had she lost the man she’d loved? Had she been happy once? Why had she come to Russia to look after other people’s children? Hélène was never to know the answer to these questions. As a little girl she didn’t dare ask and, later on, she wished to keep intact within her heart the memory of the only pure, peaceful woman she had ever known, a woman free from the stain of desire, whose eyes seemed only to have looked upon smiling, innocent faces.
    Once, Mademoiselle Rose, lost in a daydream, had murmured, ‘When I was twenty I was so unhappy that one day I almost threw myself into the Seine.’ Her eyes had gone dark and impenetrable, and Hélène sensed that Mademoiselle Rose was so lost in memory that it had become possible to talk of such sad things from the past even to a child, especially to a child. A strange, primitive sense of embarrassment filled the young girl’s heart. She could make out all the words she hated on Mademoiselle Rose’s trembling lips: ‘love’, ‘kisses’, ‘fiancé’ …
    Abruptly she had pushed her chair away and begun singing at the top of her voice, swaying backwards and forwards while stamping her feet against the floor. Mademoiselle Rose had looked at her with surprise and melancholy resignation; she had sighed and fallen silent.
    ‘Do sing, Mademoiselle Rose, please. Sing the “Marseillaise”. You know, the couplet about the little children: “We shall enter into the fray / when our elders have passed away …” Oh, how I long to be French!’
    ‘You’re right, Lili. It’s the most beautiful country in the world …’
    Hélène had often gone to bed during her parents’ quarrels, to the sound of china being broken, but thanks to Mademoiselle Rose, she could