A Gentleman in Moscow

Adjustments

Never had the toll of a bell been so welcome. Not in Moscow. Not in Europe. Not in all the world. When the Frenchman Carpentier faced the American Dempsey, he could not have felt more relief upon hearing the clang that signaled the end of the third round than the Count felt upon hearing his own clock strike twelve. Nor could the citizens of Prague upon hearing the church bells that signaled the end of their siege at the hands of Frederick the Great.

What was it about this child that prompted a grown man to count so carefully the minutes until lunch? Did she prattle on nonsensically? Did she flit about giggling? Did she dissolve into tears or launch into tantrums at the slightest provocation?

On the contrary. She was quiet.

Unsettlingly so.

Upon waking she rose, dressed, and made her bed without a word. When the Count served breakfast, she nibbled her biscuits like a Trappist. Then, having quietly cleared her plate, she climbed up onto the Count’s desk chair, sat on her hands, and gazed at him in silence. And what a gaze it was. With irises as dark and foreboding as the deep, it was positively unnerving. Without shyness or impatience, it seemed simply to say: What now, Uncle Alexander?

What now, indeed. For having made their beds and nibbled their biscuits, the two of them had the whole day before them. 16 hours. 960 minutes. 57,600 seconds!

The notion was indisputably daunting.

But who was Alexander Rostov, if not a seasoned conversationalist? At weddings and name-day celebrations from Moscow to St. Petersburg, he had inevitably been seated beside the most recalcitrant of dinner guests. The prudish aunts and pompous uncles. The mirthless, mordant, and shy. Why? Because Alexander Rostov could be counted upon to draw his dinner companions into a lively conversation, whatever their dispositions.

If he had happened to be seated beside Sofia at a dinner party—or, for that matter, in the compartment of a train traveling across the countryside—what would he do? Naturally, he would ask about her life: Where are you from, my friend? Ivanovo, you say. I have never been, but always wanted to go. What is the best season to visit? And what should one see whilst one is there?

“So, tell me . . . ,” the Count began with a smile, as Sofia’s eyes opened wide.

But even as the words were leaving his lips, the Count was having second thoughts. For he was decidedly not seated beside Sofia at a dinner party, or in a railway car. She was a child who, with little explanation, had been uprooted from her home. To pursue a line of inquiry about the sights and seasons of Ivanovo or daily life with her parents was almost certain to raise a host of sad associations, spurring feelings of longing and loss.

“So, tell me . . . ,” he said again, feeling the onset of dizziness, as her eyes opened wider. But just in time, he had a flash of inspiration:

“What is your dolly’s name?”

A sure step, that one, thought the Count, with an inward pat on the back.

“Dolly doesn’t have a name.”

“What’s that? No name? But surely, your doll must have a name.”

Sofia stared at the Count for a moment then tilted her head like a raven.

“Why?”

“Why?” repeated the Count. “Why, so that she can be addressed. So that she can be invited for tea; called to from across the room; discussed in conversation when absent; and included in your prayers. That is, for all the very reasons that you benefit from having a name.”

As Sofia considered this, the Count leaned forward, ready to elaborate on the matter to the smallest detail. But nodding once, the girl said, “I shall call her Dolly.” Then she looked to the Count with her big blue eyes as if to say: Now that that’s decided, what next?

The Count leaned back in his chair and began to sort through his vast catalog of casual questions, discarding one after another. But as luck would have it, he noticed that Sofia’s gaze had shifted almost furtively toward something behind him.

Discreetly, the Count glanced back.

The ebony elephant, he realized with a smile. Raised her entire life in a rural province, the child had probably never even imagined that such an animal existed. What sort of fantastical beast is that? she must be wondering. Is it mammal or reptile? Fact or fable?

“Have you ever seen one of those before?” the Count asked with a backward gesture and a smile.

“An elephant?” she asked. “Or a lamp?”

The Count coughed.

“I meant an elephant.”

“Only in books,” she admitted a little sadly.

“Ah. Well. It is a magnificent animal. A wonder of creation.”

Sofia’s interest piqued, the Count launched into a description of the species, animating each of its characteristics with an illustrative flourish of the arms. “A native of the Dark Continent, the mature example can weigh over ten thousand pounds. Its legs are as thick as tree trunks, and it bathes itself by drawing water into its proboscis and spraying it into the air—”

“So, you have seen one?” she interrupted brightly. “On the Dark Continent?”

The Count fidgeted.

“Not exactly on the Dark Continent . . .”

“Then where?”

“In various books . . .”

“Oh,” said Sofia, bringing the topic to a close with the efficiency of the guillotine.

. . .

. . .

The Count considered for a moment what other sort of wonder might capture her imagination, but which he had actually seen in person.

“Would you like to hear a story about a princess?” he suggested.

Sofia sat upright.

“The age of the nobility has given way to the age of the common man,” she said with the pride of one who has recited her times tables correctly. “It was historically inevitable.”

“Yes,” said the Count. “So I’ve been told.”

. . .

. . .

“Do you enjoy pictures?” he asked, picking up an illustrated guide to the Louvre that he had borrowed from the basement. “Here is a lifetime’s supply. While I wash up, why don’t you delve in?”

Sofia moved a little in order to set Dolly at her side and then accepted the book in a ready and determined manner.

Retreating to the safety of the washroom, the Count took off his shirt, bathed his upper body, and lathered his cheeks, all the while muttering the principal riddle of the day:

“She is no more than thirty pounds; no more than three feet tall; her entire bag of belongings could fit in a single drawer; she rarely speaks unless spoken to; and her heart beats no louder than a bird’s. So how is it possible that she takes up so much space?!”

Over the years, the Count had come to think of his rooms as rather ample. In the morning, they easily accommodated twenty squats and twenty stretches, a leisurely breakfast, and the reading of a novel in a tilted chair. In the evenings after work, they fostered flights of fancy, memories of travel, and meditations on history all crowned by a good night’s sleep. Yet somehow, this little visitor with her kit bag and her rag doll had altered every dimension of the room. She had simultaneously brought the ceiling downward, the floor upward, and the walls inward, such that anywhere he hoped to move she was already there. Having roused himself from a fitful night on the floor, when the Count was ready for his morning calisthenics, she was standing in the calisthenics spot. At breakfast, she ate more than her fair share of the strawberries; then when he was about to dip his second biscuit in his second cup of coffee, she was staring at it with such longing that he had no choice but to ask if she wanted it. And when, at last, he was ready to lean back in his chair with his book, she was already sitting in it, staring up at him expectantly.

But having caught himself waving his shaving brush emphatically at his own reflection, the Count stopped cold.

Good God, he thought. Is it possible?

Already?

At the age of forty-eight?

“Alexander Rostov, could it be that you have become settled in your ways?”

As a young man, the Count would never have been inconvenienced by a fellow soul. He sought out congenial company the moment he awoke.

When he had read in his chair, no interruption could be counted as a disturbance. In fact, he preferred to read with a little racket in the background. Like the shouts of a vendor in the street; or the scales of a piano in a neighboring apartment; or best of all, footsteps on the stair—footsteps that having quickly ascended two flights would suddenly stop, bang on his door, and breathlessly explain that two friends in a coach-and-four were waiting at the curb. (After all, isn’t that why the pages of books are numbered? To facilitate the finding of one’s place after a reasonable interruption?)

As to possessions, he hadn’t cared a whit about them. He was the first to lend a book or an umbrella to an acquaintance (never mind that no acquaintance since Adam had returned a book or an umbrella).

And routines? He had prided himself on never having one. He would breakfast at 10:00 A.M. one day and 2:00 P.M. the next. At his favorite restaurants, he had never ordered the same dish twice in a season. Rather, he traveled across their menus like Mr. Livingstone traveled across Africa and Magellan the seven seas.

No, at the age of twenty-two, Count Alexander Rostov could not be inconvenienced, interrupted, or unsettled. For every unexpected appearance, comment, or turn of events had been welcomed like a burst of fireworks in a summer sky—as something to be marveled at and cheered.

But apparently, this was no longer the case. . . .

The unanticipated arrival of a thirty-pound package had torn the veil from his eyes. Without his even noticing—without his acknowledgment, input, or permission—routine had established itself within his daily life. Apparently, he now ate his breakfast at an appointed hour. Apparently, he must sip his coffee and nibble his biscuits without interruption. He must read in a particular chair tilted at a particular angle with no more than the scuffing of a pigeon’s feet to distract him. He must shave his right cheek, shave his left, and only then move on to the underside of his chin.

To that end, the Count now tilted back his head and raised his razor, but the change in the angle of his gaze revealed two fathomless eyes staring back at him from the reflection in the mirror.

“Egads!”

“I have finished looking at the pictures,” she said.

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

“All of them!” It was now the Count’s eyes that opened wide. “Well, isn’t that splendid.”

“I think this is for you,” she said, holding out a small envelope.

“Where did that come from?”

“It was slipped under your door. . . .”

Taking the envelope in hand, the Count could tell that it was empty; but in place of an address, the query Three o’clock? was written in a willowy script.

“Ah, yes,” said the Count, stuffing it in his pocket. “A small matter of business.” Then he thanked Sofia in a manner indicating that she could now be on her way.

And she replied, “You’re welcome,” in a manner indicating that she had no intention of going anywhere.

Thus had the Count leapt from his bed and clapped his hands at the first chime of the noon hour.

“Right,” he said. “How about some lunch? You must be famished. I think you will find the Piazza positively delightful. More than simply a restaurant, the Piazza was designed to be an extension of the city—of its gardens, markets, and thoroughfares.”

But as the Count continued with his description of the Piazza’s advantages, he noticed that Sofia was staring at his father’s clock with an expression of surprise. And when they passed over the threshold to go downstairs, she took another look back then hesitated—as if on the verge of asking how such a delicate device could generate such a lovely sound.

Well, thought the Count as he began to close the door, if she wanted to know the secrets of the twice-tolling clock, she had come to the right place. For not only did the Count know something of chronometry, he knew absolutely everything there was to know about this particular—

“Uncle Alexander,” Sofia said in the tender tone of one who must deliver unhappy news. “I fear your clock is broken.”

Taken aback, the Count released his grip on the doorknob.

“Broken? No, no, I assure you, Sofia, my clock keeps perfect time. In fact, it was made by craftsmen known the world over for their commitment to precision.”

“It isn’t the timekeeper that is broken,” she explained. “It is the chime.”

“But it just chimed beautifully.”

“Yes. It chimed at noon. But it failed to chime at nine and ten and eleven.”

“Ah,” the Count said with a smile. “Normally, you would be perfectly right, my dear. But, you see, this is a twice-tolling clock. It was made many years ago to my father’s specifications to toll only twice a day.”

“But why?”

“Why indeed, my friend, why indeed. I’ll tell you what. Let us adjourn to the Piazza where—having placed our order and made ourselves comfortable—we shall investigate all the whys and wherefores of my father’s clock. For there is nothing more essential to the enjoyment of a civilized lunch than to have a lively topic of conversation.”

At 12:10 the Piazza was not yet bustling; but perhaps this was just as well, as the Count and Sofia received an excellent table and prompt attention from Martyn—a capable new waiter who pulled back Sofia’s chair with an admirable sense of politesse.

“My niece,” explained the Count, as Sofia looked around the room in amazement.

“I have a six-year-old of my own,” Martyn replied with a smile. “I’ll give you a moment.”

Granted, Sofia was not so unworldly as to be unfamiliar with elephants, but she had never seen anything quite like the Piazza. Not only was she marveling at the room’s scale and elegance, but at each of the individual elements that seemed to turn common sense on its head: A ceiling made of glass. A tropical garden indoors. A fountain in the middle of a room!

When Sofia completed her survey of the Piazza’s paradoxes, she seemed to understand instinctively that such a setting deserved an elevated standard of behavior. For she suddenly took her doll off the table and placed it on the empty chair to her right; when the Count slipped his napkin out from under his silverware to place it in his lap, Sofia followed suit, taking particular care not to jangle her fork and knife; and when, having placed their order with Martyn, the Count said Thank you so much, my good man, Sofia echoed the Count word for word. Then she looked to the Count, expectantly.

“Now?” she asked.

“Now what, my dear?”

“Is now when you will tell me about the twice-tolling clock?”

“Oh, yes. Precisely.”

But where to start?

Naturally enough, at the beginning.

The twice-tolling clock, the Count explained, had been commissioned by his father from the venerable firm of Breguet. Establishing their shop in Paris in 1775, the Breguets were quickly known the world over not only for the precision of their chronometers (that is, the accuracy of their clocks), but for the elaborate means by which their clocks could signal the passage of time. They had clocks that played a few measures of Mozart at the end of the hour. They had clocks that chimed not only at the hour but at the half and the quarter. They had clocks that displayed the phases of the moon, the progress of the seasons, and the cycle of the tides. But when the Count’s father visited their shop in 1882, he posed a very different sort of challenge for the firm: a clock that tolled only twice a day.

“Why would he do so?” asked the Count (in anticipation of his young listener’s favorite interrogative).

Quite simply, the Count’s father had believed that while a man should attend closely to life, he should not attend too closely to the clock. A student of both the Stoics and Montaigne, the Count’s father believed that our Creator had set aside the morning hours for industry. That is, if a man woke no later than six, engaged in a light repast, and then applied himself without interruption, by the hour of noon he should have accomplished a full day’s labor.

Thus, in his father’s view, the toll of twelve was a moment of reckoning. When the noon bell sounded, the diligent man could take pride in having made good use of the morning and sit down to his lunch with a clear conscience. But when it sounded for the frivolous man—the man who had squandered his morning in bed, or on breakfast with three papers, or on idle chatter in the sitting room—he had no choice but to ask for his Lord’s forgiveness.

In the afternoon, the Count’s father believed that a man should take care not to live by the watch in his waistcoat—marking the minutes as if the events of one’s life were stations on a railway line. Rather, having been suitably industrious before lunch, he should spend his afternoon in wise liberty. That is, he should walk among the willows, read a timeless text, converse with a friend beneath the pergola, or reflect before the fire—engaging in those endeavors that have no appointed hour, and that dictate their own beginnings and ends.

And the second chime?

The Count’s father was of the mind that one should never hear it. If one had lived one’s day well—in the service of industry, liberty, and the Lord—one should be soundly asleep long before twelve. So the second chime of the twice-tolling clock was most definitely a remonstrance. What are you doing up? it was meant to say. Were you so profligate with your daylight that you must hunt about for things to do in the dark?

“Your veal.”

“Ah. Thank you, Martyn.”

Quite appropriately, Martyn placed the first dish before Sofia and the second before the Count. Then he lingered a little closer to the table than was necessary.

“Thank you,” the Count said again in a polite sign of dismissal. But as the Count took up his silverware and began recalling for Sofia’s benefit how he and his sister would sit by the twice-tolling clock on the last night of December in order to ring in the New Year, Martyn took a step even closer.

“Yes?” asked the Count, somewhat impatiently.

Martyn hesitated.

“Shall I . . . cut the young lady’s meat?”

The Count looked across the table to where Sofia, fork in hand, was staring at her plate.

Mon Dieu, thought the Count.

“No need, my friend. I shall see to it.”

As Martyn backed away with a bow, the Count circled the table and in a few quick strokes had cut Sofia’s veal into eight pieces. Then, on the verge of setting down her cutlery, he cut the eight pieces into sixteen. By the time he had returned to his seat, she had already eaten four.

Having regained her energy through sustenance, Sofia now unleashed a cavalcade of Whys. Why was it better to commune with work in the morning and nature in the afternoon? Why would a man read three newspapers? Why should one walk under the willows rather than some other sort of tree? And what was a pergola? Which in turn led to additional inquiries regarding Idlehour, the Countess, and Helena.

In principle, the Count generally regarded a barrage of interrogatives as bad form. Left to themselves, the words who, what, why, when, and where do not a conversation make. But as the Count began to answer Sofia’s litany of queries, sketching the layout of Idlehour on the tablecloth with the tines of his fork, describing the personalities of family members and referencing various traditions—he noticed that Sofia was entirely, absolutely, and utterly engaged. What elephants and princesses had failed to accomplish, the life at Idlehour had apparently achieved. And just like that, her veal was gone.

When the plates had been cleared away, Martyn reappeared to inquire if they would be having dessert. The Count looked to Sofia with a smile, assuming that she would leap at the chance. But she bit her lower lip and shook her head.

“Are you quite sure?” the Count asked. “Ice cream? Cookies? A piece of cake?”

But shifting a bit in her chair, she shook her head again.

Enter the new generation, thought the Count with a shrug, while returning the dessert menu to Martyn.

“Apparently, we are done.”

Martyn accepted the menu, but once again lingered. Then, turning his back slightly to the table, he actually leaned over with the clear intention of whispering in the Count’s ear.

For goodness sake, thought the Count. What now?

“Count Rostov, I believe that your niece . . . may need to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

Martyn hesitated.

“To the privy . . .”

The Count looked up at the waiter and then at Sofia.

“Say no more, Martyn.”

The waiter bowed and excused himself.

“Sofia,” the Count suggested tentatively, “shall we visit the ladies’ room?”

Still biting her lip, Sofia nodded.

“Do you need me to . . . accompany you inside?” he asked, after leading her down the hallway.

Sofia shook her head and disappeared behind the washroom door.

As he waited, the Count chastised himself for his lug-headedness. Not only had he failed to cut her meat and bring her to the ladies’ room, he clearly hadn’t thought to help her unpack, because she was wearing the exact same clothes she had worn the day before.

“And you call yourself a waiter . . . ,” he said to himself.

A moment later, Sofia emerged, looking relieved. But then, despite her readily apparent love of interrogatives, she hesitated like one who is struggling with whether to ask a question.

“What is it, my dear? Is there something on your mind?”

Sofia struggled for another moment, then worked up the nerve:

“Can we still have dessert, Uncle Alexander?”

Now, it was the Count who looked relieved.

“Without a doubt, my dear. Without a doubt.”