a hopping up and down and the taking of the Lord’s name in vain.)
But Fortune does favor the bold. So, while the next swing of the hammer glanced off the nail’s head, on the third the Count hit home; and by the second nail, he had recovered the rhythm of set, drive, and sink—that ancient cadence which is not to be found in quadrilles, or hexameters, or in Vronsky’s saddlebags!
Suffice it to say that within half an hour four of the nails had been driven through the edge of the door into the doorframe—such that from that moment forward the only access to the Count’s new room would be through the sleeves of his jackets. The fifth nail he saved for the wall above the bookcase so that he could hang the portrait of his sister.
His work completed, the Count sat down in one of the high-back chairs and felt an almost surprising sense of bliss. The Count’s bedroom and this improvised study had identical dimensions, and yet, they exerted a completely different influence on his mood. To some degree, this difference stemmed from the manner in which the two rooms had been furnished. For while the room next door—with its bed, bureau, and desk—remained a realm of practical necessities, the study—with its books, the Ambassador, and Helena’s portrait—had been furnished in a manner more essential to the spirit. But in all likelihood, a greater factor in the difference between the two rooms was their provenance. For if a room that exists under the governance, authority, and intent of others seems smaller than it is, then a room that exists in secret can, regardless of its dimensions, seem as vast as one cares to imagine.
Rising from his chair, the Count took up the largest of the ten volumes that he had retrieved from the basement. True, it would not be a new venture for him. But need it be? Could one possibly accuse him of nostalgia or idleness, of wasting his time simply because he had read the story two or three times before?
Sitting back down, the Count put one foot on the edge of the coffee table and tilted back until his chair was balanced on its two hind legs, then he turned to the opening sentence:
All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
“Marvelous,” said the Count.
An Assembly
Oh, come along.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy.”
“I am not a fuddy-duddy.”
“Can you be so sure?”
“A man can never be entirely sure that he is not a fuddy-duddy. That is axiomatic to the term.”
“Exactly.”
In this manner, Nina coerced the Count to join her on one of her favorite excursions: spying from the balcony of the ballroom. The Count was reluctant to accompany Nina on this particular journey for two reasons. First, the ballroom’s balcony was narrow and dusty, and to stay out of sight one was forced to remain hunched behind the balustrade—a decidedly uncomfortable position for a grown man over six feet tall. (The last time the Count had accompanied Nina to the balcony, he had torn the seam of his pants and it took three days for him to lose the crick in his neck.) But second, this afternoon’s gathering was almost certain to be another Assembly.
Over the course of the summer, the Assemblies had been occurring at the hotel with increasing frequency. At various times of day, small groups of men would come barreling through the lobby, already gesticulating, interrupting, and eager to make their points. In the ballroom, they would join their brethren milling shoulder to shoulder, every other one of them puffing on a cigarette.
As best as the Count could determine, the Bolsheviks assembled whenever possible in whichever form for whatever reason. In a single week, there might be committees, caucuses, colloquiums, congresses, and conventions variously coming together to establish codes, set courses of action, levy complaints, and generally clamor about the world’s oldest problems in its newest nomenclature.
If the Count was reluctant to observe these gatherings, it was not because he found the ideological leanings of the attendees distasteful. He would no sooner have crouched behind a balustrade to watch Cicero debating Catiline, or Hamlet debating himself. No, it was not a matter of ideology. Simply put, the Count found political discourse of any persuasion to be tedious.
But then, wasn’t that exactly what a fuddy-duddy would argue . . . ?
Needless to say, the Count followed Nina up the stairs to the second floor. Having skirted the entrance to