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passed I came to realise that there was a deliberate pedagogical method involved. In any case, after a month His Highness was already babbling away in French and loved singing little songs in that language, and in general he had becomemuch more cheerful and free in his behaviour.
    Recently I had noticed that I was glancing into the nursery much more frequently than before, and probably more frequently than was necessary. This discovery gave me cause for serious thought, and since it has always been my rule to be honest with myself in all things, I was rather quick to work out the reason: apparently I enjoyed Mademoiselle Declique’s company.
    I am accustomed to regard anything that is enjoyable with caution, because enjoyment goes hand in hand with relaxation, and from relaxation it is only one step to negligence and serious, even irreparable lapses in one’s work. And so for some time I stopped visiting the nursery altogether (apart, naturally, from those instances when my duties required it) and became very cool with Mademoiselle Declique. But this did not last for long. She herself approached me and requested me with irreproachable politeness to assist her in improving her mastery of the Russian language – nothing special, simply to talk about various subjects with her in Russian from time to time and correct her crudest errors. Let me repeat that the request was framed so politely that a refusal would have appeared unjustifiably rude.
    Thatwas the beginning of our custom of daily conversations – on perfectly neutral and, naturally, respectable subjects. Mademoiselle learned Russian quite amazingly quickly and already knew a very large number of words. Of course, her speech was grammatically incorrect, but this had its own charm which I was not always able to resist.
    On this occasion also, as we strolled along the allée in the Neskuchny Park, wewere speaking Russian. This time, however, the conversation was rather brief and uncomfortable. The problem was that Mademoiselle had been late in coming out for the drive and we had had to wait for her in the carriage for an entire thirty seconds (I was keeping track of the time with my Swiss chronometer). In the presence of Their Highnesses I restrained myself, but nowthatwewere speaking tête-à-tête , I felt it necessary to issue a slight reprimand. I did not like reproving Mademoiselle, but my duty required me to do it. Nobody dares to keep members of the royal family waiting, not even for half a minute.
    ‘It is not at all difficult always to be on time,’ I said, pronouncing every word slowly so that she would understand. ‘One merely has to live fifteen minutes ahead of things. Let us suppose you have an appointment with someone at three o’clock, then youmust arrive at a quarter to. Or, say, in order to arrive at some place on time, you need to leave the house at two, then youmust leave at a quarter to two. For a start I would advise you to simply to set your watch forward by fifteen minutes, until you become accustomed to it, and then punctuality will become a habit.’
    What I had said was both practical and rational, but Mademoiselle Declique’s reply was impertinent.
    ‘Mr Ziukin, can I put my watch fohward by half a minute? (She could not manage the Russian ‘r’ – it came out rather like the LittleRussian ‘kh’.) I have neveh been lateh than half a minute in any case.’
    I frowned at that and decided it would be best to pause, so we walked on in silence, and Mademoiselle even turned her head away.
    Her Highnesswas telling her brother a fairy tale; I think itwas Chapeau Rouge 1 . In any case I heard the words: ‘ Et elle est allée à travers le forêt pour voir sa grandmaman. ’ 2 Mikhail Georgievich, very proud of his new sailor suit, was trying to behave like a grown-up and hardly being naughty at all, except that every now and then he began skipping on one foot and once he threw his blue cap with the red pompom down on the ground.
    Despite