General Aleksyi Polenko remembered hearing his mother, Katarina Yelena, berating his father later that same cold November night. Having been silent long enough in the matter, she had carried her soaking wet and shivering son upstairs and toweled him briskly until he was rosy and dry. Then she had helped him on with his nightshirt and tucked him into a goose-down bed covered with pure white pillows, scarlet quilts and fresh linen sheets, and hinting of her husband’s tobacco.