Inside this dark green glass was what exactly? A Chardonnay to complement a Camembert? A Sauvignon Blanc to go with some chèvre?
Whichever wine was within, it was decidedly not identical to its neighbors. On the contrary, the contents of the bottle in his hand was the product of a history as unique and complex as that of a nation, or a man. In its color, aroma, and taste, it would certainly express the idiosyncratic geology and prevailing climate of its home terrain. But in addition, it would express all the natural phenomena of its vintage. In a sip, it would evoke the timing of that winter’s thaw, the extent of that summer’s rain, the prevailing winds, and the frequency of clouds.
Yes, a bottle of wine was the ultimate distillation of time and place; a poetic expression of individuality itself. Yet here it was, cast back into the sea of anonymity, that realm of averages and unknowns.
And suddenly, the Count had his own moment of lucidity. Just as Mishka had come to understand the present as the natural by-product of the past, and could see with perfect clarity how it would shape the future, the Count now understood his place in the passage of time.
As we age, we are bound to find comfort from the notion that it takes generations for a way of life to fade. We are familiar with the songs our grandparents favored, after all, even though we never danced to them ourselves. At festive holidays, the recipes we pull from the drawer are routinely decades old, and in some cases even written in the hand of a relative long since dead. And the objects in our homes? The oriental coffee tables and well-worn desks that have been handed down from generation to generation? Despite being “out of fashion,” not only do they add beauty to our daily lives, they lend material credibility to our presumption that the passing of an era will be glacial.
But under certain circumstances, the Count finally acknowledged, this process can occur in the comparative blink of an eye. Popular upheaval, political turmoil, industrial progress—any combination of these can cause the evolution of a society to leapfrog generations, sweeping aside aspects of the past that might otherwise have lingered for decades. And this must be especially so, when those with newfound power are men who distrust any form of hesitation or nuance, and who prize self-assurance above all.
For years now, with a bit of a smile, the Count had remarked that this or that was behind him—like his days of poetry or travel or romance. But in so doing, he had never really believed it. In his heart of hearts, he had imagined that, even if unattended to, these aspects of his life were lingering somewhere on the periphery, waiting to be recalled. But looking at the bottle in his hand, the Count was struck by the realization that, in fact, it was all behind him. Because the Bolsheviks, who were so intent upon recasting the future from a mold of their own making, would not rest until every last vestige of his Russia had been uprooted, shattered, or erased.
Returning the bottle to its slot, the Count went to join Andrey at the foot of the stairs. But as he passed among the shelves, it occurred to him that it was almost all behind him. For he had one last duty to attend to.
“Just a moment, Andrey.”
Starting at the end of the cellar, the Count began weaving back and forth through the rows systematically, scanning the racks from top to bottom, until Andrey must have thought he’d lost his reason. But in the sixth row he came to a stop. Reaching down to a shelf at the height of his knee, the Count carefully took a bottle from among the thousands. Holding it up with a wistful smile, he ran his thumb over the insignia of the two crossed keys that was embossed on the glass.
On the twenty-second of June 1926—the tenth anniversary of Helena’s death—Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov would drink to his sister’s memory. Then he would shed this mortal coil, once and for all.
1926
Adieu
It is a fact of human life that one must eventually choose a philosophy. Or such was the opinion of the Count, as he stood before his old windows in suite 317, having slipped inside with the help of Nina’s key.
Whether through careful consideration spawned by books and spirited debate over coffee at two in the morning, or simply