of real independence, one’s senses are so alert, one’s sentiments so finely attuned that every conversation, every look, every laugh may be writ indelibly upon one’s memory. And the friends that one happens to make in those impressionable years? One will meet them forever after with a welling of affection.”
Having expressed this paradox, the Count happened to look across the lobby, where Grisha was lugging the luggage of one guest toward the front desk as Genya lugged the luggage of another toward the door.
“Perhaps it is a matter of celestial balance,” he reflected. “A sort of cosmic equilibrium. Perhaps the aggregate experience of Time is a constant and thus for our children to establish such vivid impressions of this particular June, we must relinquish our claims upon it.”
“So that they might remember, we must forget,” Vasily summed up.
“Exactly!” said the Count. “So that they might remember, we must forget. But should we take umbrage at the fact? Should we feel shortchanged by the notion that their experiences for the moment may be richer than ours? I think not. For it is hardly our purpose at this late stage to log a new portfolio of lasting memories. Rather, we should be dedicating ourselves to ensuring that they taste freely of experience. And we must do so without trepidation. Rather than tucking in blankets and buttoning up coats, we must have faith in them to tuck and button on their own. And if they fumble with their newfound liberty, we must remain composed, generous, judicious. We must encourage them to venture out from under our watchful gaze, and then sigh with pride when they pass at last through the revolving doors of life. . . .”
As if to illustrate, the Count gestured generously and judiciously toward the hotel’s entrance, while giving an exemplary sigh. Then he tapped the concierge’s desk.
“By the way. Do you happen to know where she is?”
Vasily looked up from his tickets.
“Miss Sofia?”
“Yes.”
“She is in the ballroom with Viktor, I believe.”
“Ah. She must be helping him polish the floors for an upcoming banquet.”
“No. Not Viktor Ivanovich. Viktor Stepanovich.”
“Viktor Stepanovich?”
“Yes. Viktor Stepanovich Skadovsky. The conductor of the orchestra at the Piazza.”
If in part, the Count had been trying to express to Vasily how in our golden years a passage of time can be so fleet and leave so little an impression upon our memory, that it is almost as if it never occurred—well then, here was a perfect example.
For the three minutes it took the Count to travel from a delightful conversation at the concierge’s desk to the ballroom, where he had grabbed a scoundrel by the lapels, had also passed in the blink of an eye. Why, it had passed so quickly, that the Count did not remember knocking the luggage from Grisha’s grip as he marched down the hall; nor did he remember throwing open the door and shouting Aha!; nor yanking the would-be Casanova up off the loveseat, where he had intertwined his fingers with Sofia’s.
No, the Count did not remember any of it. But to ensure a celestial balance and the equilibrium of the cosmos, this moustachioed scoundrel in evening clothes was sure to remember every single second for the rest of his life.
“Your Excellency,” he implored, as he dangled in the air. “There has been a terrible misunderstanding!”
Looking up at the startled face above his fists, the Count confirmed that there had been no misunderstanding. It was definitely the very same fellow who waved his baton so blithely on the bandstand in the Piazza. And though he apparently knew how to produce an honorific in a timely fashion, he was clearly as villainous a viper as had ever slithered from the underbrush of Eden.
But whatever his level of villainy, the current situation did pose a quandary. For once you have hoisted a scoundrel by the lapels, what are you to do with him? At least when you have a fellow by the scruff of the neck, you can carry him out the door and toss him down the stairs. But when you have him by the lapels, he isn’t so easy to dispense with. Before the Count could solve his conundrum, Sofia expressed a conundrum of her own.
“Papa! What are you doing?”
“Go to your room, Sofia. This gentleman and I have a few matters to discuss—before I give him the drubbing of a lifetime.”
“The drubbing of a lifetime? But Viktor Stepanovich is my instructor.”
Keeping one eye on the scoundrel, the Count glanced at his daughter