“Yes, it will be nice to see everyone,” said Nina. “But when we return to Moscow in January, I shall be starting school.”
“You don’t seem very excited by the prospect.”
“I fear it will be dreadfully dull,” she admitted, “and positively overrun with children.”
The Count nodded gravely to acknowledge the indisputable likelihood of children in the schoolhouse; then, as he dipped his own spoon into the scoop of strawberry, he noted that he had enjoyed school very much.
“Everybody tells me that.”
“I loved reading the Odyssey and the Aeneid; and I made some of the finest friends of my life. . . .”
“Yes, yes,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Everybody tells me that too.”
“Well, sometimes everybody tells you something because it is true.”
“Sometimes,” Nina clarified, “everybody tells you something because they are everybody. But why should one listen to everybody? Did everybody write the Odyssey? Did everybody write the Aeneid?” She shook her head then concluded definitively: “The only difference between everybody and nobody is all the shoes.”
Perhaps the Count should have left it at that. But he hated the idea of his young friend beginning her Moscow school days with such a desolatory view. As she progressed through the dark purple scoop (presumably blackberry), he considered how best to articulate the virtues of a formal education.
“While there are certainly some irksome aspects to school,” he conceded after a moment, “I think you will find to your eventual delight that the experience has broadened your horizons.”
Nina looked up.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What do I mean by what?”
“By broadened your horizons.”
The Count’s assertion had seemed so axiomatic that he had not prepared an elaboration. So before responding, he signaled the Bishop for another glass of champagne. For centuries champagne has been used to launch marriages and ships. Most assume this is because the drink is so intrinsically celebratory; but, in fact, it is used at the onset of these dangerous enterprises because it so capably boosts one’s resolve. When the glass was placed on the table, the Count took a swig large enough to tickle his sinuses.
“By broadening your horizons,” he ventured, “what I meant is that education will give you a sense of the world’s scope, of its wonders, of its many and varied ways of life.”
“Wouldn’t travel achieve that more effectively?”
“Travel?”
“We are talking about horizons, aren’t we? That horizontal line at the limit of sight? Rather than sitting in orderly rows in a schoolhouse, wouldn’t one be better served by working her way toward an actual horizon, so that she could see what lay beyond it? That’s what Marco Polo did when he traveled to China. And what Columbus did when he traveled to America. And what Peter the Great did when he traveled through Europe incognito!”
Nina paused to take a great mouthful of the chocolate, and when the Count appeared about to reply she waved her spoon to indicate that she was not yet finished. He waited attentively for her to swallow.
“Last night my father took me to Scheherazade.”
“Ah,” the Count replied (grateful for the change of subject). “Rimsky-Korsakov at his best.”
“Perhaps. I wouldn’t know. The point is: According to the program, the composition was intended to ‘enchant’ the listeners with ‘the world of the Arabian Nights.’”
“That realm of Aladdin and the lamp,” said the Count with a smile.
“Exactly. And, in fact, everyone in the theater seemed utterly enchanted.”
“Well, there you are.”
“And yet, not one of them has any intention of going to Arabia—even though that is where the lamp is.”
By some extraordinary conspiracy of fate, at the very instant Nina made this pronouncement, the accordion player concluded an old favorite and the sparsely populated room broke into applause. Sitting back, Nina gestured to her fellow customers with both hands as if their ovation were the final proof of her position.
It is the mark of a fine chess player to tip over his own king when he sees that defeat is inevitable, no matter how many moves remain in the game. Thus, the Count inquired:
“How was your hors d’oeuvre?”
“Splendid.”
The accordion player now began to play a jaunty little melody reminiscent of an English carol. Taking this as his signal, the Count indicated that he would like to make a toast.
“It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life,” he began, “that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I