utterly inappropriate for one to sit at a table when one is dressed to wait upon it.
“Come now,” the stranger said amiably. “You wouldn’t refuse a solitary diner the pleasure of your company.”
“Certainly not,” replied the Count.
But having accepted the chair, he did not place the napkin in his lap.
After a rap at the door, it opened to admit the Goliath. Without looking at the Count, he approached the table and held out a bottle for the stranger’s consideration.
The host leaned forward and squinted at the label.
“Excellent,” he said. “Thank you, Vladimir.”
Presumably, Vladimir could simply have broken the top off the bottle, but with surprising agility he produced a corkscrew from a pocket, spun it in his hand, and pulled the cork. Then, having received a nod from his superior, he placed the open bottle on the table and retreated back to the hall. The stranger poured a glass for himself. Then, with the bottle hovering over the table at a forty-five-degree angle, he looked to the Count.
“Won’t you join me?”
“With pleasure.”
After the stranger poured, they both raised their glasses and drank.
“Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov,” he said after returning his glass to the table. “Recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt . . .”
“You have me at a disadvantage.”
“You don’t know who I am?”
“I know that you are a man who can secure one of the Boyarsky’s private rooms in which to dine alone while a behemoth waits at the door.”
The stranger laughed.
“Very good,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What else do you see?”
The Count studied his host more indiscreetly and then shrugged.
“I’d say you were a man of forty and were a soldier once. I suspect you joined the infantry, but were a colonel by the end of the war.”
“How would you know that I became a colonel?”
“It is the business of a gentleman to distinguish between men of rank.”
“The business of a gentleman,” the colonel repeated with a smile, as if he appreciated the turn of phrase. “And can you tell where I’m from?”
The Count dismissed the question with a wave of the hand.
“The surest way to insult a Walloon is to mistake him for a Frenchman, though they live but a few miles apart and share the same language.”
“I suppose that’s true,” the colonel conceded. “Nonetheless. I’m interested in your guesswork; and I promise I won’t be insulted.”
The Count took a sip of his wine and returned the glass to the table.
“You are almost certainly from eastern Georgia.”
The captain sat up with an expression of enthusiasm.
“Extraordinary. Do I have an accent?”
“Not that’s distinguishable. But then armies, like universities, are where accents are most commonly shed.”
“Then why eastern Georgia?”
The Count gestured to the wine.
“Only an eastern Georgian would start his meal with a bottle of Rkatsiteli.”
“Because he’s a hayseed?”
“Because he misses home.”
The colonel laughed again.
“What a canny fellow you are.”
There was another rap at the door and it opened to admit the giant pushing a Regency cart.
“Ah. Excellent. Here we are.”
When Vladimir had wheeled the cart to the table, the Count began to push back his chair, but his host gestured that he should remain seated. Vladimir removed the dome and placed a platter at the center of the table. As he left the room, the colonel picked up a carving knife and fork.
“Let’s see. What do we have here? Ah, roasted duck. I’ve been told the Boyarsky’s is unparalleled.”
“You are not misinformed. Make sure you take a few cherries and some of the skin.”
The colonel doled out a portion for himself, including cherries and skin, and then served the Count.
“Absolutely delicious,” he said, when he had taken his first bite.
The Count bowed his head to accept the compliment on Emile’s behalf.
The colonel gestured to the Count with his fork.
“You have a very interesting file, Alexander Ilyich.”
“I have a file?”
“I’m sorry. A terrible habit of speech. What I meant to say is that you have an interesting background.”
“Ah, yes. Well. Life has been generous to me in its variety.”
The colonel smiled. Then he commenced in the tone of one who is trying to do justice to the facts.
“You were born in Leningrad. . . .”
“I was born in St. Petersburg.”
“Ah, yes, of course. In St. Petersburg. As your parents died when you were young, you were raised by your grandmother. You attended the academy and then the Imperial University in . . . St. Petersburg.”