Nicolas finds himself struck dumb.

‘Let me tell you something that I hope won’t sound patronising,’ Bessie continues. ‘Until I had my daughter, I knew nothing of love.’ Using her heel, she slides a basket of toys towards herself and takes out a wooden rattle with which she tries to engage the child’s interest, but Marianne seems listless and dull. Bessie puts the rattle in her daughter’s hands and closes her fingers around it.

‘I’m embarrassed to think of myself as I was before, consumed with the love of revolution, too easily impressed by Pierre’s childish dialectics. Of course, the me I was would regard all this as treachery. But the world looks different now. I’m all Marianne has. No god or government will do anything for her.’ The child closes one sleepy eye as she gnaws and drools on the rattle. Bessie plants a loving kiss on its big, fragile head. ‘People used to say to me, wait till you’re older, you’ll see that the world is complicated, there’s shades of grey in everything. But the opposite has happened. My world couldn’t be more simple. There are only two people in it. That’s all there ever can be.’ The smile she makes is the gentlest she has ever shown him. ‘I know you’ll understand.’

At the threshold, she embraces him. The cotton of her blouse folds crisply under his awkward hand. ‘I’m sorry I was beastly about your Tsar book,’ she says. ‘You would have made a lovely boyfriend.’

He tries to reply but she stops his lips with her finger. The moment recalls that furious kiss in the doorway, yards from the meeting with the revolutionaries. But this time there are tears and tenderness in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Nicolas. Now go!’

‘Rachkovsky was best man at my wedding.’

Anya’s dress, put together in one of her father’s ateliers, is the talk of Paris. A pirated pattern is leaked to a dressmaking magazine, much to her mother’s delight.

Rachkovsky, pleased as punch to be chosen as best man, organises a surprise stag weekend in Estonia. Ganz, Mulhouse, Nicolas, Rachkovsky and Volchkov hunt ducks and relax in a five-star spa resort in the woods. Nicolas has been feeling strangely unreal ever since he returned to what is, technically, his real life. He’d like to confide in someone, but a weekend away with three of Russia’s leading secret policemen doesn’t seem like a good moment to open his heart. Perhaps if he had time alone with Volchkov, he could speak to him, but Volchkov is getting on bafflingly well with Rachkovsky. The spymaster and the self-identified bohemian have discovered shared interests in drinking, photography and karaoke. The two of them belt out a surprisingly tuneful version of ‘Unchained Melody’ together after dinner.

In his king-size bed, under the head of a stuffed elk, Nicolas reads a love letter that Anya has slipped into his suitcase. It’s breathless in its anticipation of their coming life together. There’s no doubt that she’ll be a wonderful wife. Mr Rozenfeld has already dropped hints about bringing Nicolas into the family business. His financial future looks secure. So why does he feel as though he’s dying?