surely, the balcony wasn’t high enough to calculate the acceleration of gravity. But it is hardly the role of the casual observer to call into question the methodology of the seasoned scientist. So, the Count kept his wonderings where they belonged.
Boris took up the kopek and, showing due consideration for the seriousness of his task, he carefully arranged himself so that he could hold the designated object precisely at the top of the balustrade.
After making a notation on her pad, Nina picked up her watch.
“On the count of three, Boris. One. Two. Three!”
Boris released the coin and after a moment of silence, it pinged against the floor.
Nina looked at her watch.
“One point two five seconds,” she called to Boris.
“Check,” he replied.
Carefully noting the datum in its corresponding square, on a separate sheet of paper Nina divided the figure by a factor, carried its remainder, subtracted the difference, and so on and so forth, until she rounded the solution to the second decimal. Then she shook her head in apparent disappointment.
“Thirty-two feet per second per second.”
Boris responded with an expression of scientific concern.
“The egg,” Nina said.
The egg (which presumably had been liberated from the Piazza’s kitchen) was held precisely, released exactly, and timed to the centisecond. The experiment continued with a teacup, a billiard ball, a dictionary, and the pineapple, all of which completed their journey to the dance floor in the same amount of time. Thus, in the ballroom of the Metropol Hotel on the twenty-first of June 1926, was the heretic, Galileo of Galilei, vindicated by a ping, a splat, a smash, a thunk, a thump, and a thud.
Of the six objects, the teacup was the Count’s personal favorite. It not only made a satisfying smash upon impact, but in the immediate aftermath one could hear the shards of porcelain skidding across the floor like acorns across the ice.
Having completed her tally, Nina observed a little sadly:
“Professor Lisitsky said that these hypotheses have been tested over time. . . .”
“Yes,” said the Count. “I imagine they have. . . .”
Then to lighten her spirits, he suggested that as it was almost eight o’clock, perhaps she and her young friend might join him for supper at the Boyarsky. Alas, she and Boris had another experiment to perform—one that involved a bucket of water, a bicycle, and the perimeter of Red Square.
On this of all nights, was the Count disappointed that Nina and her young friend couldn’t join him for supper? Of course he was. And yet, the Count had always been of the opinion that God, who could easily have split the hours of darkness and light right down the middle, had chosen instead to make the days of summer longer for scientific expeditions of just this very sort. In addition, the Count had a pleasant inkling that Boris might prove to be the first in a long line of earnest and attentive young men who would be dropping eggs from balustrades and riding bikes with buckets.
“Then I leave you to it,” said the Count with a smile.
“All right. But had you come for something in particular?”
“No,” the Count replied after a pause, “nothing in particular.” But as he turned toward the door, something did occur to him. “Nina . . .”
She looked up from her work.
“Even though these hypotheses have been tested over time, I think you were perfectly right to test them again.”
Nina studied the Count for a moment.
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “You have always known me the best.”
At ten o’clock the Count was seated in the Boyarsky with an empty plate and a nearly empty bottle of White on the table. With the day drawing rapidly to a close, he took some pride in knowing that everything was in order.
That morning, having received a visit from Konstantin Konstantinovich, the Count had brought his accounts up to date at Muir & Mirrielees (now known as the Central Universal Department Store), Filippov’s (the First Moscow Bakery), and, of course, the Metropol. At the Grand Duke’s desk, he had written a letter to Mishka, which he had then entrusted to Petya with instructions it be mailed on the following day. In the afternoon, he had paid his weekly visit to the barber and tidied up his rooms. He had donned his burgundy smoking jacket (which, to be perfectly frank, was disconcertingly snug), and in its pocket he placed a single gold coin for the undertaker with instructions that he be dressed in the freshly pressed black suit (which