‘It reminded me awfully of Petersburg,’ said Nikolay. ‘Remember how you once made a mistake and forgot one candle? I had turned ten, but there were only nine candles. Tu escamotas my birthday. I bawled my head off. And how many do we have here?’

‘Oh, what does it matter?’ she shouted, and rose, almost as if she wanted to block his view of the table. ‘Why don’t you tell me instead what time it is? I must ring up and cancel the party … I must do something.’

‘Quarter past seven,’ said Nikolay.

‘Trop tard, trop tard!’ she raised her voice again. ‘All right! At this point it no longer matters …’

Both fell silent. She resumed her seat. Nikolay was trying to force himself to hug her, to cuddle up to her, to ask, ‘Listen, Mother – what has happened to you? Come on: out with it.’ He took another look at the brilliant table and counted the candles ringing the cake. There were twenty-five of them. Twenty-five! And he was already twenty-eight …

‘Please don’t examine my room like that!’ said his mother. ‘You look like a regular detective! It’s a horrid hole. I would gladly move elsewhere, but I sold the villa that Kind left me.’ Abruptly she gave a small gasp: ‘Wait a minute – what was that? Did you make that noise?’

‘Yes,’ answered Nikolay. ‘I’m knocking the ashes out of my pipe. But tell me: you do still have enough money? You’re not having any trouble making ends meet?’

She busied herself with readjusting a ribbon on her sleeve and spoke without looking at him: ‘Yes … Of course. He left me a few foreign stocks, a hospital and an ancient prison. A prison! … But I must warn you that I have barely enough to live on. For heaven’s sake stop knocking with that pipe. I must warn you that I … That I cannot … Oh, you understand, Nick – it would be hard for me to support you.’

‘What on earth are you talking about, Mother?’ exclaimed Nikolay (and at that moment, like a stupid sun issuing from behind a stupid cloud, the electric light burst forth from the ceiling). ‘There, we can snuff out those tapers now; it was like squatting in the Mostaga Mausoleum. You see, I do have a small supply of cash, and anyway, I like to be as free as a damned fowl of some sort … Come, sit down – stop running around the room.’

Tall, thin, bright blue, she stopped in front of him and now, in the full light, he saw how much she had aged, how insistently the wrinkles on her cheeks and forehead showed through the make-up. And that awful bleached hair! …