the eyes of beauties in every salon in St. Petersburg.
“Scuff the parquet?”
“Ahem,” said the Count. “Yes, I have danced at balls.”
“And have you lived in a castle?”
“Castles are not as common in our country as they are in fairy tales,” the Count explained. “But I have dined in a castle. . . .”
Accepting this response as sufficient, if not ideal, the girl now furrowed her brow. She put another quadrant of fish in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Then she suddenly leaned forward.
“Have you ever been in a duel?”
“An affaire d’honneur?” The Count hesitated. “I suppose I have been in a duel of sorts. . . .”
“With pistols at thirty-two paces?”
“In my case, it was more of a duel in the figurative sense.”
When the Count’s guest expressed her disappointment at this unfortunate clarification, he found himself offering a consolation:
“My godfather was a second on more than one occasion.”
“A second?”
“When a gentleman has been offended and demands satisfaction on the field of honor, he and his counterpart each appoint seconds—in essence, their lieutenants. It is the seconds who settle upon the rules of engagement.”
“What sort of rules of engagement?”
“The time and place of the duel. What weapons will be used. If it is to be pistols, then how many paces will be taken and whether there will be more than one exchange of shots.”
“Your godfather, you say. Where did he live?”
“Here in Moscow.”
“Were his duels in Moscow?”
“One of them was. In fact, it sprang from a dispute that occurred in this hotel—between an admiral and a prince. They had been at odds for quite some time, I gather, but things came to a head one night when their paths collided in the lobby, and the gauntlet was thrown down on that very spot.”
“Which very spot?”
“By the concierge’s desk.”
“Right where I sit!”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Were they in love with the same woman?”
“I don’t think a woman was involved.”
The girl looked at the Count with an expression of incredulity.
“A woman is always involved,” she said.
“Yes. Well. Whatever the cause, an offense was taken followed by a demand for an apology, a refusal to provide one, and a slap of the glove. At the time, the hotel was managed by a German fellow named Keffler, who was reputedly a baron in his own right. And it was generally known that he kept a pair of pistols hidden behind a panel in his office, so that when an incident occurred, seconds could confer in privacy, carriages could be summoned, and the feuding parties could be whisked away with weapons in hand.”
“In the hours before dawn . . .”
“In the hours before dawn.”
“To some remote spot . . .”
“To some remote spot.”
She leaned forward.
“Lensky was killed by Onegin in a duel.”
She said this in a hushed voice, as if quoting the events of Pushkin’s poem required discretion.
“Yes,” whispered back the Count. “And so was Pushkin.”
She nodded in grave agreement.
“In St. Petersburg,” she said. “On the banks of the Black Rivulet.”
“On the banks of the Black Rivulet.”
The young lady’s fish was now gone. Placing her napkin on her plate and nodding her head once to suggest how perfectly acceptable the Count had proven as a luncheon companion, she rose from her chair. But before turning to go, she paused.
“I prefer you without your moustaches,” she said. “Their absence improves your . . . countenance.”
Then she performed an off-kilter curtsey and disappeared behind the fountain.
An affaire d’honneur . . .
Or so thought the Count with a touch of self-recrimination as he sat alone later that night in the hotel’s bar with a snifter of brandy.
Situated off the lobby, furnished with banquettes, a mahogany bar, and a wall of bottles, this American-style watering hole was affectionately referred to by the Count as the Shalyapin, in honor of the great Russian opera singer who had frequented the spot in the years before the Revolution. Once a beehive of activity, the Shalyapin was now more a chapel of prayer and reflection—but tonight that suited the Count’s cast of mind.
Yes, he continued in his thoughts, how fine almost any human endeavor can be made to sound when expressed in the proper French. . . .
“May I offer you a hand, Your Excellency?”
This was Audrius, the Shalyapin’s tender at bar. A Lithuanian with a blond goatee and a ready smile, Audrius was a man who knew his business. Why, the moment after you took a stool he would be leaning toward you with his forearm on the bar to ask your pleasure; and