when, vengeance in hand, they hold us at their mercy, is by submission to move them to commiseration and pity. However, audacity and steadfastness—entirely contrary means—have sometimes served to produce the same effect. . . .
It was at Idlehour that the Count had first formed the habit of reading in a tilted chair.
On those glorious spring days when the orchards were in bloom and the foxtails bobbed above the grass, he and Helena would seek out a pleasant corner to while away the hours. One day it might be under the pergola on the upper patio and the next beside the great elm that overlooked the bend in the river. As Helena embroidered, the Count would tilt back his chair—balancing himself by resting a foot lightly on the lip of the fountain or the trunk of the tree—in order to read aloud from her favorite works of Pushkin. And hour upon hour, stanza upon stanza, her little needle would go round and round.
“Where are all those stitches headed?” he would occasionally demand at the end of a page. “Surely, by now, every pillow in the household has been graced by a butterfly and every handkerchief by a monogram.” And when he accused her of unwinding her stitches at night like Penelope just so that he would have to read her another volume of verse, she would smile inscrutably.
Looking up from the pages of Montaigne, the Count rested his gaze on Helena’s portrait, which was leaning against the wall. Painted at Idlehour in the month of August, it depicted his sister at the dining room table before a plate of peaches. How well Serov had captured her likeness—with her hair as black as a raven’s, her cheeks lightly flushed, her expression tender and forgiving. Perhaps there had been something in those stitches, thought the Count, some gentle wisdom that she was mastering through the completion of every little loop. Yes, with such kindheartedness at the age of fourteen, one could only imagine the grace she might have exhibited at the age of twenty-five. . . .
The Count was roused from this reverie by a delicate tapping. Closing his father’s book, he looked back to find a sixty-year-old Greek in the doorway.
“Konstantin Konstantinovich!”
Letting the front legs of his chair land on the floor with a thump, the Count crossed to the threshold and took his visitor’s hand.
“I am so glad you could come. We have only met once or twice, so you may not remember, but I am Alexander Rostov.”
The old Greek gave a bow to show that no reminder was necessary.
“Come in, come in. Have a seat.”
Waving Montaigne’s masterpiece at the one-eyed cat (who leapt to the floor with a hiss), the Count offered his guest the high-back chair and took the desk chair for himself.
In the moment that ensued, the old Greek returned the Count’s gaze with an expression of moderate curiosity—which was to be expected, perhaps, given that they had never met on a matter of business. After all, the Count was not accustomed to losing at cards. So the Count took it upon himself to begin.
“As you can see, Konstantin, my circumstances have changed.”
The Count’s guest allowed himself an expression of surprise.
“No, it is true,” said the Count. “They have changed quite a bit.”
Looking once about the room, the old Greek raised his hands to acknowledge the doleful impermanence of circumstances,
“Perhaps you are looking for access to some . . . capital?” he ventured.
In making this suggestion, the old Greek paused ever so briefly before the word capital. And in the Count’s considered opinion, it was a perfect pause—one mastered over decades of delicate conversations. It was a pause with which he expressed an element of sympathy for his interlocutor without suggesting for even an instant that there had been a change in their relative stations.
“No, no,” assured the Count with a shake of the head to emphasize that borrowing was not a habit of the Rostovs. “On the contrary, Konstantin, I have something that I think will be of interest to you.” Then, as if from thin air, the Count produced one of the coins from the Grand Duke’s desk, balancing it upright on the tip of a finger and thumb.
The old Greek studied the coin for a second and then, in a sign of appreciation, slowly exhaled. For while Konstantin Konstantinovich was a lender by trade, his art was to see an item for a minute, to hold it for a moment, and to know its