ruthless case of dissembling. And even as he searched, there she sat, clutching her little Dolly in its bright blue dress, without ever once betraying her wiles.
The Count took one step back and bowed at the waist.
At six o’clock, having descended to the ground floor to deliver Sofia into Marina’s care, returned up to the sixth floor to retrieve Sofia’s doll, and then down to the ground floor to deliver it, the Count proceeded to the Boyarsky.
Apologizing to Andrey for being late, he quickly assessed his team, reviewed the tables, adjusted the glasses, aligned the silver, took a peek at Emile, and finally gave the signal that the restaurant could be opened. At half past seven, he went to the Red Room to oversee the GAZ dinner. Then at ten, he headed down the hall to where the doors of the Yellow Room were being guarded by a Goliath.
Ever since 1930, the Count and Osip had been dining together on the third Saturday of the month in order to further the former Red Army colonel’s understanding of the West.
Having dedicated the first several years to a study of the French (covering their idioms and forms of address, the personalities of Napoleon, Richelieu, and Talleyrand, the essence of the Enlightenment, the genius of Impressionism, and their prevailing aptitude for je ne sais quoi), the Count and Osip spent the next few years studying the British (covering the necessity of tea, the implausible rules of cricket, the etiquette of foxhunting, their relentless if well-deserved pride in Shakespeare, and the all-encompassing, overriding importance of the pub). But more recently, they had shifted their attention to the United States.
To that end, tonight on the table beside their nearly empty plates were two copies of Alexis de Tocqueville’s masterpiece, Democracy in America. Osip had been somewhat intimidated by its length, but the Count had assured him that there was no better text with which to establish a fundamental understanding of American culture. So, the former colonel had burned the midnight oil for three weeks and arrived in the Yellow Room with the eagerness of the well-prepared schoolboy at his baccalaureate. And having seconded the Count’s fondness for summer nights, echoed his compliments on the sauce au poivre, and shared his appreciation of the claret’s nose, Osip was itching to get down to business.
“It is indeed a lovely wine, a lovely steak, and a lovely summer night,” he said. “But shouldn’t we be shifting our attention to the book?”
“Yes, certainly,” said the Count, setting down his glass. “Let us turn our attention to the book. Why don’t you start us off. . . .”
“Well, first I’d have to say that it’s no Call of the Wild.”
“No,” said the Count with a smile. “It is certainly no Call of the Wild.”
“And I have to admit, that while I appreciated de Tocqueville’s attention to detail, on the whole I found the first volume, on the Americans’ political system, rather slow in going.”
“Yes.” The Count nodded sagely. “The first volume may well be characterized as detailed to a fault. . . .”
“But the second volume—on the characteristics of their society—I found to be absolutely fascinating.”
“In that, you are not alone.”
“In fact, right from the first line . . . Wait. Where is it? Here we are: There is not, I think, a single country in the civilized world where less attention is paid to philosophy than in the United States. Ha! That should tell us a thing or two.”
“Quite so,” said the Count with a chuckle.
“And here. A few chapters later, he singles out their unusual passion for material well-being. The minds of Americans, he says, are universally preoccupied with meeting the body’s every need and attending to life’s little comforts. And that was in 1840. Imagine if he had visited them in the 1920s!”
“Ha. Visited them in the 1920s. Well put, my friend.”
“But tell me, Alexander: What are we to make of his assertion that democracy is particularly suited to industry?”
The Count leaned back in his chair and moved about his utensils.
“Yes. The question of industry. That is an excellent place to dig in, Osip. Right at the heart of it. What do you make of it?”
“But I was asking what you made of it, Alexander.”
“And you shall hear what I think without fail. But as your tutor, I would be remiss were I to skew your impressions before you had the chance to formulate them yourself. So let us begin with the freshness of your thoughts.”