Above the grove of pines there was one lone chalet where Dr. Tilmann sometimes lodged a special patient. During the summer of 1913, when Rosalind accompanied the Ostrov family to Bavaria for the second time, there was a young woman in the Annex. An Englishwoman, declared Marie-Louise Ostrova excitedly; exquisitely beautiful and mad as a bird. She could sometimes be heard in the night, playing the harmonium. Rosalind expressed mild disapproval of this gossip, as a Governess should. Marie-Louise had made friends with a little nurse who spoke French. Rosalind did not believe that this was at all the place for a lively child of thirteen but the trials of the Ostrov family were such that there seemed to be no help for it. St. Verena's Hospital specialized in nervous complaints of the European aristocracy; Dr. Lucas Tilmann had recently taken over from his father, Professor Dr. Wilhelm Tilmann. The old man still wore a frock coat, a cravat, and the kind of high stiff collar called in German a Vatermorder, a father-murderer. Many of the gentlemen about at the time did so, too, but the Junior Chief, Dr. Lucas, was a dress reformer who went about in a soft collar and a lightweight jacket of beige linen. The Ostrov family came ostensibly for the Countess Valeria's nerves but really it was for poor Leonid, the only son, who was losing his reason. Besides being unfortunate, charming, cultivated, and in decline, the family were so astonishingly rich that they had retained an important French specialist at the estate on the Black Sea for the winter. On Christmas Eve, the anniversary of the General's death, Leonid made another attempt, this time from his balcony, and poor Dr. Patin restrained him at the cost of a broken arm. Rosalind dared not reveal much of what she experienced during these years to her widowed mother in Cheltenham. One evening, after a long day with the Countess during her hydrotherapy Rosalind followed a path up into the pines to her own favorite retreat. It was a clearing in the wood with a rustic bench and a wayside shrine which contained not a carved wooden saint but an icon of St. George, painted on metal. Many Russian families patronized St.Verenas; they valued its discretion as well as its natural beauty. Rosalind could sit on the bench and look out to the ranks of the mountains or down to the village. Overhead the Annex was visible among the trees and an even higher mountain meadow, bathed in bright sunlight. There was a rustling in the bushes: she thought of a pair of marmots or even a deer. In fact it was a young woman, of about Rosalind's own age, dressed in a gray silk dress of "reformed" cut. Her poor stockinged feet were stained and hurt, her golden hair stood out round her pale face in a cloud and hung in long, ragged elf locks down past her hips; leaves and pine needles had caught in it. Rosalind understood the situation at once. She rose up, took the patient's arm, and said: "Let me help you!" "You are English!" whispered the girl. "Oh please. . ." "Sit here with me," said Rosalind. "Let me brush your poor hair." She had a large bag of toilet articles which she had carried with her from the bathhouse: the girl turned her head obediently and Rosalind went to work with professional skill. "You have an English touch," said the girl. "My body is covered from head to foot with the imprint of his fingers." "Hush," said Rosalind gently. "He comes to me at night," continued the girl. "All the poor Doctor's beastly medicines can't make me sleep. I wake up, very hot and wet under the horrid German feather bed and there is Teddy, my darling Teddy..." Rosalind began to plait the magnificent fall of golden hair into a loose braid. She turned her head and saw Dr. Lucas Tilmann emerge from the bushes warily, as if stalking a butterfly. The mad girl had not seen him but her mood had altered; she began to weep, pouring out a stream of confused regrets and sorrows. She would never be well, she was imprisoned, the wretched little harmonium was out of tune, her mother was cruel, the swans had all flown away from the lake ....Teddy knew what she should do and she had tried, more than once, but it was too difficult, the guns hurt her fingers. "Oh no, " said Rosalind softly, "you must never do that. Never try to hurt yourself." She fastened the enormous Rapunzel braid of hair with a pink ribbon from her bag. Dr. Tilmann drew closer and said cautiously: "Miss Courtney...Maud?" The patient screamed aloud; before she could spring up Rosalind put her arms around her firmly. "No," she said. "Please, Maud dear. Please be good! Dr. Tilmann will give you a nice cup of tea...see, he has brought your slippers. How kind...." A nurse appeared now on the path from the Annex and a young intern, Dr. Daniel, alerted by telephone, came running up from the hospital. Maud Courtney was docile again; her slippers were put on, she was led away down the hill to the main building. Lucas Tilmann accompanied the party a little way then rejoined Rosalind in the clearing. "Miss--Lane? I am deeply indebted...." "Poor thing," said Rosalind. "I hope that she...." He sat down beside her on the bench and covered his face with his hands. "The prognosis," he said, after a few seconds, "is not good." "She spoke of someone called Teddy..." prompted Rosalind. "Her brother died in the Punjab," sighed Dr. Tilmann. "She has never been told." "Dr. Tilmann," said Rosalind, "what is the matter with the poor girl? What would you call her--disorder?" "A retreat from the world," he said. "Bleuler has characterized it as schizophrenie. I swear to you, Miss Lane, I would give my life, I would make any Faustian bargain if I might effect an improvement, a cure, in some of these patients...." The season was nearly at an end; Leonid Ivanovitch agreed to remain in St. Verena's for the winter months. Rosalind was the last member of the Ostrov family party to speak to the young man; they walked in the orangerie, speaking in a mixture of English and French. "I know it is my nose,"said Leonid. "It still bothers me a good deal. Chere Rosaline, take care of my mother, see to the butterfly collection, I have left a box of swaps for the Nabokov boys. . . .The voices will keep me informed. I am quite happy here. Dr. Lucas loves you, did you know that?" "You are exaggerating, I think," said Rosalind, with a smile. She had dined twice with Lucas Tilmann and driven as far as Berchtesgarten in his new Daimler Landaulet. Leonid was very upset by her mild deprecation and fell into a brooding silence, picking at the spots on his face. An attendant lurked behind the orange trees in their tubs. Leonid was twenty-eight years old and unfit for military service. The winter passed quietly on the estate: before she was too deeply involved in the amateur theatricals and the ball season word came that her mother was very ill. The Countess managed to obtain a passage for Rosalind on a steam yacht, the Nereid, owned by a consortium of Greek-Americans, which sailed from the port of Odessa. She arrived home at the quiet, dark house near the Thirlestaine Road, and took over the nursing of her mother shortly after Christmas. She sat by the bed in the darkened room and told endless tales of the wonders that she had seen. Clothes and jewels; the opera and the ballet; the country estates; priests, monks, holy icons....Father Fyodor, the Ostrov chaplain, sent a small one which Mrs.Lane held between her thin fingers on top of the eiderdown. She became upset when Rosalind touched on mutiny, civil commotion, the Ostrov cousin Kyril, who had joined a revolutionary cell at University and been exiled to the district of Irkutsk. Rosalind knew what her mother wished to hear, though reason had told them both when she took the post as governess to the Ostrovs that she would not meet eligible men. Now, to please the dying woman, she went so far as to claim that she had an understanding, with a doctor, Lucas Tilmann, at the alpine clinic. He had indeed sent her a card, with a charming letter and a lace-edged handkerchief, which arrived with the Ostrovs' Christmas box, in January.

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