by Amor Towles
He shook his head.
“I fear it may be my fault, Viktor. Yesterday afternoon, when we received the news, I made so much of it: The chance to play Rachmaninov before an audience of thousands in the Palais Garnier! I must have triggered feelings of trepidation. She has a tender heart, as you say; but she also has spunk. She is bound to come around in the weeks ahead.”
Viktor took the Count by the sleeve.
“But there are no weeks ahead. On Friday, a public announcement will be made describing the orchestra’s itinerary and the musical program. The director will need to have all of his performers in place before the announcement. Assuming that the decision to withdraw Sofia was yours, I gained his assurance that he would wait twenty-four hours before making a new appointment—so that I could try to persuade you. If she has made this decision on her own, then you must speak to her tonight and change her mind. She must come to the defense of her own talent!”
One hour later at table ten of the Boyarsky, with menus perused and orders placed, Sofia looked to the Count expectantly—as it was his turn to play first in Zut. But, despite the fact that he had prepared a promising category (common uses for wax),* the Count opted instead to summon an untold story from the past.
“Have I ever told you about Ribbon Day at the academy?” he began.
“Yes,” Sofia said. “You have.”
Furrowing his brow, the Count reviewed all of the conversations that he had ever had with his daughter in chronological order and could find no evidence of having told her the tale before.
“I may have mentioned something about Ribbon Day once or twice,” he conceded, to be polite, “but I am quite sure that I have never told you this particular story. You see, as a boy I had a certain aptitude for marksmanship. And one spring—when I was about your age—there was a Ribbon Day at the academy in which we were all chosen to compete in different events—”
“Weren’t you closer to thirteen?”
“What’s that?”
“Weren’t you thirteen when this happened?”
The Count’s eyes went back and forth as he completed certain calculations.
“Well, yes,” he continued somewhat impatiently, “I suppose I was something like thirteen. The important point is that given my marksmanship, I was generally regarded throughout the school as the favorite in the archery competition, and I looked forward to the event with great anticipation. But the closer we got to Ribbon Day, the worse my marksmanship became. Well known for piercing grapes at fifty paces, I suddenly couldn’t hit the hide of an elephant at fifteen feet. Just the sight of my bow made my hands shake and my eyes water. Suddenly, I—a Rostov—found myself flirting with the notion of inventing an illness and checking into the infirmary—”
“But you didn’t.”
“That’s right. I didn’t.”
The Count took a sip of wine and paused for dramatic effect.
“At last the dreaded day arrived; and with all the spectators assembled on the sporting fields, the time came for the archery event. Even as I faced the target, I could anticipate the humiliation that was sure to follow when—despite my reputation—my arrow would shoot wide of its mark. But as with trembling hands I drew back my bow, from the corner of my eye I happened to see old Professor Tartakov trip over his walking stick and topple into a pile of manure. Well, the sight filled me with such joy that my fingers released the bow of their own accord—”
“And having sailed through the air, your arrow landed in the center of the target.”
“Well, yes. That’s right. The very center. So perhaps I have told you this story before. But did you know that ever since that day, when I have been anxious about my aim, I have thought of old Professor Tartakov tumbling into the manure and have reliably hit my mark.”
The Count turned his hand in the air in a concluding flourish.
Sofia smiled but with a perplexed expression, as if she wasn’t quite sure why the renowned marksman had chosen to relay this particular tale at this particular time. So, the Count elaborated.
“In life, it is the same for all of us. We are bound to face moments of trepidation whether we venture onto the floor of the senate, the field of athletics, or . . . the stage of a concert hall.”
Sofia stared at the Count, for a moment then let out a bright laugh.
“The stage of a concert hall.”
“Yes,” said the Count, a little offended. “The stage of a concert hall.”
“Someone has told you about my conversation with Director Vavilov.”
The Count rearranged his fork and knife, which had somehow become misaligned.
“I may have heard something from someone,” he said noncommittally.
“Papa. I am not afraid of performing with the orchestra before an audience.”
“Can you be so sure?”
“Positively.”
“You have never performed in a hall as large as the Palais Garnier. . . .”
“I know.”
“And the French are notoriously exacting as an audience. . . .”
Sofia laughed again.
“Well, if you’re trying to set me at ease, you’re not doing a very good job of it. But honestly, Papa, feelings of anxiety have nothing to do with my decision.”
“Then what?”
“I simply don’t want to go.”
“How could you not want to go?”
Sofia looked down at the table and moved her own silver.
“I like it here,” she said at last—gesturing to the room and, by extension, the hotel. “I like it here with you.”
The Count studied his daughter. With her long black hair, fair skin, and dark blue eyes, she seemed serene beyond her years. And therein, perhaps, lay the problem. For if serenity should be a hallmark of maturity, then impetuousness should be a hallmark of youth.
“I want to tell you a different story,” he said, “a story that I am sure you have never heard. It took place in this very hotel some thirty years ago—on a snowy night in December, much like this one. . . .”
And the Count went on to tell Sofia about the Christmas that he had celebrated with her mother in the Piazza in 1922. He told her about Nina’s hors d’oeuvre of ice creams, and her reluctance to sit in scholarly rows, and her argument that if one wished to broaden one’s horizons, one would best be served by venturing beyond the horizon.
The Count suddenly grew somber.
“I fear I have done you a great disservice, Sofia. From the time you were a child, I have lured you into a life that is principally circumscribed by the four walls of this building. We all have. Marina, Andrey, Emile, and I. We have ventured to make the hotel seem as wide and wonderful as the world, so that you would opt to spend more time in it with us. But your mother was perfectly right. One does not fulfill one’s potential by listening to Scheherazade in a gilded hall, or by reading the Odyssey in one’s den. One does so by setting forth into the vast unknown—just like Marco Polo when he traveled to China, or Columbus when he traveled to America.”
Sofia nodded in understanding.
The Count continued.
“I have had countless reasons to be proud of you; and certainly one of the greatest was the night of the Conservatory competition. But the moment I felt that pride was not when you and Anna brought home news of your victory. It was earlier in the evening, when I watched you heading out the hotel’s doors on your way to the hall. For what matters in life is not whether we receive a round of applause; what matters is whether we have the courage to venture forth despite the uncertainty of acclaim.”
“If I am to play the piano in Paris,” said Sofia after a moment, “I only wish that you could be there in the audience to hear me.”
The Count smiled.
“I assure you, my dear, were you to play the piano on the moon, I would hear every chord.”
Achilles Agonistes
Greetings, Arkady.”
“Greetings to you, Count Rostov. Is there something I can do for you this morning?”
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, could you spare a bit of stationery?”
“Certainly.”
Standing at the front desk, the Count penned a one-sentence note under the hotel’s moniker and addressed the envelope in an appropriately slanted script; he waited until the bell captain was otherwise occupied, casually crossed the lobby, slipped the note onto the bell captain’s desk, and then headed downstairs for his weekly visit to the barber.
It had been many years since Yaroslav Yaroslavl had worked his magic in the barbershop of the Metropol, and in the interim any number of successors had attempted to fill his shoes. The most recent fellow—Boris Something-or-other-ovich—was perfectly qualified to shorten a man’s hair; but he was neither the artist nor the conversationalist that Yaroslav had been. In fact, he went about his business with such mute efficiency, one suspected he was part machine.
“Trim?” he asked the Count, wasting no time with subjects, verbs, or the other superfluities of language.
Given the Count’s thinning hair and the barber’s predisposition to efficiency, a trim might take all of ten minutes.
“Yes, a trim,” said the Count. “But perhaps a shave as well. . . .”
The barber furrowed his brow. The man in him, no doubt, was inclined to point out that the Count had obviously shaved a few hours before; but the machinery in him was so finely tuned, it was already putting down the scissors and reaching for the shaving brush.
Having whipped a sufficient lather, Boris dabbed it on those areas of the Count’s face where whiskers would have been had the Count been in need of a shave. He sharpened one of his razors on his strop, leaned over the chair, and with an unflinching hand shaved the Count’s right upper cheek in a single pass. Wiping the blade on the towel at his waist, he then leaned over the Count’s left upper cheek, and shaved it with equal alacrity.
At this rate, fretted the Count, he’ll be done in a minute and a half.
Using a bent knuckle, the barber now raised the Count’s chin. The Count could feel the metal of the razor make contact with his throat. And that’s when one of the new bellhops appeared in the door.
“Excuse me, sir.”
“Yes?” said the barber with his blade held fast at the Count’s jugular.
“I have a note for you.”
“On the bench.”
“But it is urgent,” said the young man with some anxiety.
“Urgent?”
“Yes, sir. From the manager.”
The barber looked back at the bellhop for the first time.
“The manager?”
“Yes, sir.”
After an extended exhalation, the barber removed the blade from the Count’s throat, accepted the missive, and—as the bellhop disappeared down the hall—slit the envelope open with his razor.
Unfolding the note, the barber stared at it for a full minute. In those sixty seconds, he must have read it ten times over because it was composed of only four words: Come see me immediately!
The barber exhaled again then looked at the wall.
“I can’t imagine,” he said to no one. Then having thought it over for another minute, he turned to the Count: “I must see to something.”
“By all means. Do what you must. I am in no hurry.”
To underscore his point, the Count leaned back his head and closed his eyes as if to nap; but when the barber’s footsteps had receded down the hall, the Count leapt from the chair like a cat.
When the Count was a young man, he prided himself on the fact that he was unmoved by the ticking of the clock. In the early years of the twentieth century, there were those of his acquaintance who brought a new sense of urgency to their slightest endeavor. They timed the consumption of their breakfast, the walk to their office, and the hanging of their hat on its hook with as much precision as if they were preparing for a military campaign. They answered the phone on the first ring, scanned the headlines, limited their conversations to whatever was most germane, and generally spent their days in pursuit of the second hand. God bless them.
For his part, the Count had opted for the life of the purposefully unrushed. Not only was he disinclined to race toward some appointed hour—disdaining even to wear a watch—he took the greatest satisfaction when assuring a friend that a worldly matter could wait in favor of a leisurely lunch or a stroll along the embankment. After all, did not wine improve with age? Was it not the passage of years that gave a piece of furniture its delightful patina? When all was said and done, the endeavors that most modern men saw as urgent (such as appointments with bankers and the catching of trains), probably could have waited, while those they deemed frivolous (such as cups of tea and friendly chats) had deserved their immediate attention.
Cups of tea and friendly chats! the modern man objects. If one is to make time for such idle pursuits, how could one ever attend to the necessities of adulthood?
Luckily, the answer to this conundrum was provided by the philosopher Zeno in the fifth century B.C. Achilles, a man of action and urgency, trained to measure his exertions to the tenth of a second, should be able to quickly dispense with a twenty-yard dash. But in order to advance a yard, the hero must first advance eighteen inches; and in order to advance eighteen inches, he must first advance nine; but to advance nine, he must first advance four and a half, and so on. Thus, on his way to completing the twenty-yard dash, Achilles must traverse an infinite number of lengths—which, by definition, would take an infinite amount of time. By extension (as the Count had liked to point out), the man who has an appointment at twelve has an infinite number of intervals between now and then in which to pursue the satisfactions of the spirit.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
But ever since Sofia returned home that night in late December with word of the Conservatory’s tour, the Count had had a very different perspective on the passage of time. Before they’d even finished celebrating the news, he’d calculated that less than six months remained before she was scheduled to depart. One hundred and seventy-eight days, to be exact; or 356 chimings of the twice-tolling clock. And in that brief span, there was so much to be done. . . .
Given the Count’s membership as a younger man to the ranks of the purposefully unrushed, one might have expected the ticking of this clock to buzz around his ears like a mosquito in the night; or prompt him, like Oblomov, to turn on his side and face the wall in a state of malaise. But what occurred was the opposite. In the days that followed, it brightened his step, sharpened his senses, and quickened his wits. For just like the rousing of Humphrey Bogart’s indignation, the clock’s ticking revealed the Count to be a Man of Intent.
In the last week of December, one of the Catherines the Count had retrieved from the Grand Duke’s desk was brought by Vasily to the basement of TsUM and cashed in for store credit. With the proceeds, the concierge purchased a small tan valise along with other necessities of travel, such as a towel, soap, toothpaste, and a toothbrush. These were wrapped in festive paper and presented to Sofia on Christmas Eve (at midnight).
Per Director Vavilov, Sofia’s performance of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto was to be the penultimate piece on the program, followed by a violin prodigy’s performance of a Dvorak concerto, both with full orchestra. The Count had no doubt that Rachmaninov’s Second was well within Sofia’s grasp; but even Horowitz had his Tarnowsky. So in early January, the Count hired Viktor Stepanovich to help her rehearse.
In late January, the Count commissioned Marina to fashion a new dress for the concert. After a design meeting that included Marina, Anna, and Sofia—and which, for some incomprehensible reason, excluded the Count—Vasily was dispatched back to TsUM for a bolt of blue taffeta.
Over the years, the Count had done an adequate job
of teaching Sofia the rudiments of conversational French. Nonetheless, beginning in February, father and daughter set aside games of Zut in order to review the more practical applications of the French language while they awaited their appetizers.
“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur, avez-vous l’heure, s’il vous plaît?”
“Oui, Mademoiselle, il est dix heures.”
“Merci. Et pourriez-vous me dire où se trouvent les Champs-Élysées?”
“Oui, continuez tout droit dans cette direction.”
“Merci beaucoup.”
“Je vous en prie.”
Early in March, for the first time in years, the Count visited the Metropol’s basement. Passing by the furnace and electrical rooms, he made his way to the little corner where the hotel stowed those items left behind by guests. Kneeling before the shelf of books, he scanned the spines, paying special attention to those little red volumes with gold lettering: the Baedekers. Naturally enough, the majority of travel guides in the basement were dedicated to Russia, but a few were for other countries, having presumably been discarded at the end of an extended tour. Thus, scattered among the abandoned novels, the Count discovered one Baedeker for Italy; one for Finland; one for England; and, finally, two for the city of Paris.
Then on the twenty-first of March, the Count penned the slanted one-sentence insistence under the hotel’s moniker, slipped it on the bell captain’s desk, went on his weekly visit to the barber, and waited for the note to arrive. . . .
Having poked his head into the hallway in order to watch Boris mount the stairs, the Count closed the barbershop door and turned his attention to Yaroslav’s renowned glass cabinet. At the front of the cabinet were two rows of large white bottles bearing the insignia of the Hammer and Sickle Shampoo Company. But behind these soldiers in the fight for universal cleanliness, all but forgotten, was a selection of the brightly colored bottles from the old days. Taking out several of the shampoo bottles, the Count surveyed the tonics, soaps, and oils—but couldn’t find what he was looking for.
