the Boyarsky and ensured the coast was clear, they used Nina’s key to open the unmarked door to the balcony.
Down below, a hundred men were already in their chairs and another hundred were conferring in the aisles as three impressive fellows took their seats behind a long wooden table on the dais. Which is to say, the Assembly had nearly Assembled.
As this was the second of August and there had already been two Assemblies earlier that day, the temperature in the ballroom was 91˚. Nina skirted out behind the balustrade on her hands and knees. When the Count bent over to do the same, the seam in the back of his pants gave way again.
“Merde,” he muttered.
“Shh,” said Nina.
The first time the Count had joined Nina on the balcony, he couldn’t help but feel some astonishment at how profoundly the life of the ballroom had changed. Not ten years before, all of Moscow society would have been gathered in their finery under the grand chandeliers to dance the mazurka and toast the Tsar. But after witnessing a few of the Assemblies, the Count had come to an even more astonishing conclusion: that despite the Revolution, the room had barely changed at all.
At that very moment, for example, two young men were coming through the doors looking game for the fray; but before exchanging a word with a soul, they crossed the room in order to pay their respects to an old man seated by the wall. Presumably, this elder had taken part in the 1905 revolution, or penned a pamphlet in 1880, or dined with Karl Marx back in 1852. Whatever his claim to eminence, the old revolutionary acknowledged the deference of the two young Bolsheviks with a self-assured nod of the head—all the while sitting in the very chair from which the Grand Duchess Anapova had received the greetings of dutiful young princes at her annual Easter Ball.
Or consider the charming-looking chap who, in the manner of Prince Tetrakov, was now touring the room, shaking hands and patting backs. Having systematically made an impression in every corner—with a weighty remark here and a witty remark there—he now excused himself “for just a moment.” But once through the door, he will not reappear. For having ensured that everyone in the ballroom has noted his attendance, he will now head off to an altogether different sort of Assembly—one that is to take place in a cozy little room in the Arbat.
Later, no doubt, some dashing young Turk who is rumored to have Lenin’s ear will make a point of arriving when the business of the evening is nearly done—just as Captain Radyanko had when he had the ear of the Tsar—thus exhibiting his indifference to the smaller conventions of etiquette while reinforcing his reputation as a man with so much to attend to and so little time to attend to it.
Of course, there is now more canvas than cashmere in the room, more gray than gold. But is the patch on the elbow really that much different from the epaulette on the shoulder? Aren’t those workaday caps donned, like the bicorne and shako before them, in order to strike a particular note? Or take that bureaucrat on the dais with his gavel. Surely, he can afford a tailored jacket and a creased pair of pants. If he is wearing this ragged fare, it is in order to assure all assembled that he too is a hardened member of the working class!
As if hearing the Count’s thoughts, this Secretary suddenly rapped his gavel on the tabletop—calling to order the Second Meeting of the First Congress of the Moscow Branch of the All-Russian Union of Railway Workers. The doors were closed, seats were taken, Nina held her breath, and the Assembly was underway.
In the first fifteen minutes, six different administrative matters were raised and dispensed with in quick succession—leading one to imagine that this particular Assembly might actually be concluded before one’s back gave out. But next on the docket was a subject that proved more contentious. It was a proposal to amend the Union’s charter—or more precisely, the seventh sentence of the second paragraph, which the Secretary now read in full.
Here, indeed, was a formidable sentence—one that was on intimate terms with the comma, and that held the period in healthy disregard. For its apparent purpose was to catalog without fear or hesitation every single virtue of the Union including but not limited to: its unwavering shoulders, its undaunted steps, the clanging