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.”