Thank you, everyone, for your positive comments and support for my writing! This week we will re-connect with Hélène when she was working as a governess in Russia in 1914. Having lived in Saint-Pétersbourg since 1909, she now spoke fluent Russian, spent her spare time with her friend, Marie, and had settled into the routines of the Stolberg family. Little did she know that her relatively carefree life would soon come to an end, as WW1 loomed just around the corner.
Here is the excerpt, from March 31, 1918:
‘Today, on her 25th birthday, four-and-a-half years after she had arrived in Russia, Hélène had a few hours to herself while the children were studying with the tutor, and she felt justified in splurging a little at Albert’s, where they served French coffee and croissants. Truth be told, the coffee was more moitié French, moitié Russian, the owner proudly pouring it out in a long thin stream like tea from a samovar, then, with a flourish, adding some hot milk that hadn’t been properly steamed. And the croissants, well, they couldn’t have been made with real butter. But in spite of all this, Hélène could still close her eyes and imagine herself in the Café au Coin in Châlons-sur-Marne, sitting with her maman sipping a café au lait or chocolat chaud, taking that first buttery bite of the flaky croissant, the crunchy outer layers and the doughy inner layers, the crumbs, most of them, falling languidly and politely to her waiting plate.
Tonight, she would be celebrating her birthday with a special Russian dinner with the Stolberg family. When she had poked her nose in the kitchen earlier today, the cook had been making pirog, her favourite dessert.
“Mmm, is that for my birthday?” Hélène asked Nadia in Russian.
“None of your business,” the cook had responded with a laugh. “Now, out of my kitchen, young miss!”
It had taken some time to become proficient in the Russian language, the long open vowels in the back of the throat so different from the front-of-the-face earnestness of the French language. Although many of the Russian people she met spoke French, learning Russian had been essential to helping her fit into daily life in the Stolberg family and Saint-Pétersbourg.
Sitting in the warm restaurant, behind the steamy windows, Hélène thought back over the past few years: she had developed an easy-going relationship with Galina Vasiliev and Maxime Sapozhnik Stolberg, got along well with the rest of the household staff, and had proudly watched the children, now 14 and 12, become completely fluent in the French language and culture. In fact, Hélène thought, her job as governess was going so well, and she was enjoying Saint-Pétersbourg so much that, while she had saved 700 roubles, almost 1900 francs, and missed her daughter, Lili, so much, perhaps she would earn just a little more, and return to France in a year or so.
Her musings turned to Lili, who would soon be six years old. She seemed to be thriving, according to Maria Tellier, in good health, and had lots of little friends. She had started school last year and the reports from her teachers were good. Hélène missed her with a constant dull ache in her heart, but was comforted by the upbeat letters.
In spite of regularly sending letters and postcards to Châlons, Hélène only occasionally heard from her maman, and from her sisters only in the annual family Christmas letter. She was a little hurt that Blanche and Gaby hadn’t written to her, wondered if maman might possibly be behind it.
She and Marie got together as often as possible, and they had many friends in Saint-Pétersbourg. Neither of them had met any eligible men, however. Marie didn’t think any of the Russian men she met were appropriate and had decided to wait to find a husband when she returned to France. Hélène had to admit that she had met some interesting men, but an awkward shyness overcame her in their company, and she was incapable of encouraging them or even holding up her end of the conversation. When she was a little more honest with herself, she suspected that she might be worried about how she would respond to the intimacy of a relationship. Would she be able to trust a man? How much of her background should she reveal? She supposed her maman’s advice would be to not disclose too much information, but she knew she couldn’t build a relationship on a lie. And there was always that lingering doubt that maybe she could have handled the situation with M. Collard differently, fought him off more, told her maman sooner, or worse, that maybe she had encouraged him, as he had accused. But she really didn’t want to think about that, especially not today.
Hélène’s mind turned to the political situation in Russia, knowing that Galina Vasiliev and Maxime Sapozhnik’s position in society depended on the strength of the autocracy. There had been some disturbing events over the past few years: the assassination of the Prime Minister of the Duma; the growing influence of that unsavoury, charismatic moujik, Raspoutine, on the Tsarina Alexandra; and the possibility that their only son, the nine-year-old Tsarevich, was ill with a debilitating disease that would prevent his ability to become Tsar. While these rumours provided the people of Saint-Pétersbourg with juicy gossip, Hélène was thankful they didn’t affect her daily life.
As she finished her coffee and musings, Hélène slowly strolled back through the Mikhailovsky Garden, across Nevsky Prospekt, to the Stolberg mansion on Katherinen Kanal.’
The image is of the wrought iron fence at the Mikhailovsky Garden.