Then he heard a lock, a bolt made a double resonant sound, and the door, as if swung by a violent wind, burst open. It was just as dark in the anteroom as on the stairs, and out of that darkness floated a vibrant, joyful voice. ‘The lights are out in the whole building – eto oozhas, it’s appalling’ – and Nikolay recognized at once that long emphatic ‘oo’ and on its basis instantly reconstructed down to the most minute feature the person who now stood, still concealed by darkness, in the doorway.

‘Sure, can’t see a thing,’ said he with a laugh, and advanced toward her.

Her cry was as startled as if a strong hand had struck her. In the dark he found her arms, and shoulders, and bumped against something (probably the umbrella stand). ‘No, no, it’s not possible …’ she kept repeating rapidly as she backed away.

‘Hold still, Mother, hold still for a minute,’ he said, hitting something again (this time it was the half-open front door, which shut with a great slam).

‘It can’t be … Nicky, Nick –’

He was kissing her at random, on the cheeks, on the hair, everywhere, unable to see anything in the dark but with some interior vision recognizing all of her from head to toe, and only one thing about her had changed (and even this novelty unexpectedly made him recall his earliest childhood, when she used to play the piano): the strong, elegant smell of perfume – as if those intervening years had not existed, the years of his adolescence and her widowhood, when she no longer wore perfume and faded so sorrowfully – it seemed as if nothing of that had happened, and he had passed straight from distant exile into childhood … ‘It’s you. You’ve come. You’re really here,’ she prattled, pressing her soft lips against him. ‘It’s good … This is how it should be …’

‘Isn’t there any light anywhere?’ Nikolay inquired cheerfully.

She opened an inner door and said excitedly, ‘Yes, come on. I’ve lit some candles there.’

‘Well, let me look at you,’ he said, entering the flickering aura of candlelight and gazing avidly at his mother. Her dark hair had been bleached a very light strawlike shade.

‘Well, don’t you recognize me?’ she asked, with a nervous intake of breath, then added hurriedly, ‘Don’t stare at me like that. Come on, tell me all the news! What a tan you have … my goodness! Yes, tell me everything!’

That blonde bob … And her face was made up with excruciating care. The moist streak of a tear, though, had eaten through the rosy paint, and her mascara-laden lashes were wet, and the powder on the wings of her nose had turned violet. She was wearing a glossy blue dress closed at the throat. And everything about her was unfamiliar, restless and frightening.