Or perhaps it was the utterly unanticipated blessing of Nina’s friendship. Whatever the cause, when the Count closed his book and turned out the light, he fell asleep with a great sense of well-being.
But had the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come suddenly appeared and roused the Count to give him a glimpse of the future, he would have seen that his sense of well-being had been premature. For less than four years later, after another careful accounting of the twice-tolling clock’s twelve chimes, Alexander Ilyich Rostov would be climbing to the roof of the Metropol Hotel in his finest jacket and gamely approaching its parapet in order to throw himself into the street below.
BOOK TWO
1923
An Actress, an Apparition, an Apiary
At five o’clock on the twenty-first of June, the Count stood before his closet with his hand on his plain gray blazer and hesitated. In a few minutes, he would be on his way to the barbershop for his weekly visit, and then to the Shalyapin to meet Mishka, who would probably be wearing the same brown jacket he’d worn since 1913. As such, the gray blazer seemed a perfectly suitable choice of attire. That is, until one considered that it was an anniversary of sorts—for it had been one year to the day since the Count had last set foot outside of the Metropol Hotel.
But how was one to celebrate such an anniversary? And should one? For while house arrest is a definitive infringement upon one’s liberty, presumably it is also intended to be something of a humiliation. So both pride and common sense would suggest that such an anniversary might best be left unmarked.
And yet . . .
Even men in the most trying of circumstances—like those lost at sea or confined to prison—will find the means to carefully account the passing of a year. Despite the fact that all the splendid modulations of the seasons and those colorful festivities that recur in the course of normal life have been replaced by a tyranny of indistinguishable days, the men in such situations will carve their 365 notches into a piece of wood or scratch them into the walls of their cell.
Why do they go to such lengths to mark time? When, ostensibly, to do so should matter to them least of all? Well, for one, it provides an occasion to reflect on the inevitable progress of the world they’ve left behind: Ah, Alyosha must now be able to climb the tree in the yard; and Vanya must be entering the academy; and Nadya, dear Nadya, will soon be of an age to marry. . . .
But just as important, a careful accounting of days allows the isolated to note that another year of hardship has been endured; survived; bested. Whether they have found the strength to persevere through a tireless determination or some foolhardy optimism, those 365 hatch marks stand as proof of their indomitability. For after all, if attentiveness should be measured in minutes and discipline measured in hours, then indomitability must be measured in years. Or, if philosophical investigations are not to your taste, then let us simply agree that the wise man celebrates what he can.
Thus, the Count donned his finest smoking jacket (custom-made in Paris from a burgundy velvet) and headed down the stairs.
When the Count reached the lobby, before he could continue to the barbershop his eyes were drawn to a willowy figure coming through the hotel’s doors. But then all eyes in the lobby were drawn to her. A tall woman in her midtwenties with arched eyebrows and auburn hair, she was indisputably striking. And as she approached the front desk, she walked with a breezy sureness as seemingly unaware of the feathers projecting from her hat as of the bellhops dragging her luggage behind her. But what guaranteed her position as the natural center of attention were the two borzois she had on leash.
In an instant the Count could see that they were magnificent beasts. Their coats silver, their loins lean, their every sense alert, these dogs had been raised to give chase in the cold October air with a hunting party hot on their heels. And at day’s end? They were meant to sit at the feet of their master before a fire in a manor house—not adorn the hands of a willow in the lobby of a grand hotel. . . .
The injustice of this was not lost on the dogs. As their mistress addressed Arkady at the front desk,