by Amor Towles
“. . . I would be ever so grateful,” Nina continued, “if you would share with me some of the rules of being a princess.”
“The rules?”
“Yes. The rules.”
“But, Nina,” the Count said with a smile, “being a princess is not a game.”
Nina stared at the Count with an expression of patience.
“I am certain that you know what I mean. Those things that were expected of a princess.”
“Ah, yes. I see.”
The Count leaned back to give his hostess’s inquiry a more appropriate consideration.
“Well,” he said after a moment, “setting aside the study of the liberal arts, which we discussed the other day, I suppose the rules of being a princess would begin with a refinement of manners. To that end, she would be taught how to comport herself in society; she would be taught terms of address, table manners, posture . . .”
Having nodded favorably at the various items on the Count’s list, Nina looked up sharply at the last one.
“Posture? Is posture a type of manners?”
“Yes,” replied the Count, albeit a little tentatively, “it is. A slouching posture tends to suggest a certain laziness of character, as well as a lack of interest in others. Whereas an upright posture can confirm a sense of self-possession, and a quality of engagement—both of which are befitting of a princess.”
Apparently swayed by this argument, Nina sat a little more upright.
“Go on.”
The Count reflected.
“A princess would be raised to show respect for her elders.”
Nina bowed her head toward the Count in deference. He coughed.
“I wasn’t referring to me, Nina. After all, I am practically a youth like yourself. No, by ‘elders,’ I meant the gray haired.”
Nina nodded to express her understanding.
“You mean the grand dukes and grand duchesses.”
“Well, yes. Certainly them. But I mean elders of every social class. The shopkeepers and milkmaids, blacksmiths and peasants.”
Never hesitant to express her sentiments with facial expressions, Nina frowned. The Count elaborated.
“The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.”
As Nina still looked unconvinced, the Count considered how best to make his point; and it so happened that at that very moment, through the great windows of the coffeehouse could be seen the first hoisting of umbrellas.
“An example,” he said.
Thus commenced the story of Princess Golitsyn and the crone of Kudrovo:
One stormy night in St. Petersburg, related the Count, young Princess Golitsyn was on her way to the annual ball at the Tushins’. As her carriage crossed the Lomonosov Bridge, she happened to notice an eighty-year-old woman on foot, hunched against the rain. Without a second thought, she called for her driver to stop the carriage and invited the unfortunate soul inside. The old woman, who was nearly blind, climbed aboard with the footman’s help and thanked the Princess profusely. In the back of the Princess’s mind may well have been the presumption that her passenger lived nearby. After all, how far was an old, blind woman likely to journey on a night like this? But when the Princess asked where the old woman was headed, she replied that she was going to visit her son, the blacksmith, in Kudrovo—more than seven miles away!
Now, the Princess was already expected at the Tushins’. And in a matter of minutes they would be passing the house—lit from cellar to ceiling with a footman on every step. So, it would have been well within the bounds of courtesy for the Princess to excuse herself and send the carriage on to Kudrovo with the old woman. In fact, as they approached the Tushins’, the driver slowed the horses and looked to the Princess for instruction. . . .
Here the Count paused for effect.
“Well,” Nina asked, “what did she do?”
“She told him to drive on.” The Count smiled with a touch of triumph. “And what is more, when they arrived in Kudrovo and the blacksmith’s family gathered round the carriage, the old woman invited the Princess in for tea. The blacksmith winced, the coachman gasped, and the footman nearly fainted. But Princess Golitsyn graciously accepted the old woman’s invitation—and missed the Tushins’ altogether.”
His point expertly made, the Count raised his own cup of tea, nodded once, and drank.
Nina looked at him expectantly.
“And then?”
The Count returned his cup to its saucer.
“And then what?”
“Did she marry the blacksmith’s son?”
“Marry the blacksmith’s son! Good God. Certainly not. After a glass of tea she climbed into her carriage and headed for home.”
Nina mulled this over. Clearly, she thought a marriage to the blacksmith’s son a more fitting conclusion. But despite the shortcomings of history, she nodded to acknowledge that the Count had delivered a well-told tale.
Preferring to preserve his success, the Count opted not to share his normal coda to this delightful bit of St. Petersburg lore: that the Countess Tushin had been greeting guests under her portico when Princess Golitsyn’s bright blue carriage, known the city over, slowed before the gates and then sped on. This resulted in a rift between the Golitsyns and the Tushins that would have taken three generations to repair—if a certain Revolution hadn’t brought an end to their outrage altogether. . . .
“It was behavior befitting a princess,” acknowledged Nina.
“Exactly,” said the Count.
Then he held out the tea cakes and Nina took two, putting one on her plate and one in her mouth.
The Count was not one to call attention to the social shortcomings of acquaintances, but giddy with his story’s reception, he could not resist pointing out with a smile:
“There is another example.”
“Where is another example?”
“A princess would be raised to say please when she asked for a cake, and thank you when she was offered one.”
Nina looked taken aback; and then dismissive.
“I can see that please would be quite appropriate for a princess to say when she has asked for a cake; but I can see no reason why she should have to say thank you when she has been offered one.”
“Manners are not like bonbons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-bitten ones back in the box. . . .”
Nina eyed the Count with an expression of seasoned tolerance, and then presumably for his benefit, spoke a little more slowly.
“I understand that a princess should say please if she is asking for a cake, because she is trying to convince someone to give her the cake. And I suppose, if having asked for a cake, she is given a cake, then she has good reason to say thank you. But in the second part of your example, the princess in question didn’t ask for the cake; she was offered it. And I see no reason why she should have to say thank you when she is merely obliging someone by accepting what they’ve offered.”
To punctuate her point, Nina put a lemon tartlet in her mouth.
“I concede that there is some merit to your argument,” said the Count. “But I can only tell you from a life of experience that—”
Nina cut him off with a wave of a finger.
“But you have just said that you are quite young.”
“Indeed, I am.”
“Well then, it seems to me that your claim of ‘a life of experience’ may be premature.”
Yes, thought the Count, as this tea was making perfectly clear.
“I shall work upon my posture,” Nina said quite def
initively, brushing the crumbs from her fingers. “And I will be sure to say please and thank you whenever I ask for things. But I have no intention of thanking people for things I never asked for in the first place.”
Around and About
On the twelfth of July at seven o’clock, as the Count was crossing the lobby on his way to the Boyarsky, Nina caught his eye from behind one of the potted palms and gave him the signal. It was the first time that she had hailed him for an excursion this late in the day.
“Quick,” she explained, when he had joined her behind the tree. “The gentleman has gone out to dine.”
The gentleman?
To avoid drawing attention to themselves, the two walked casually up the stairs. But as they turned onto the third floor, they ran smack into a guest who was patting his pockets for his key. On the landing directly across from the elevator, there was a stained-glass window of long-legged birds wading in shallows that the Count had passed a thousand times before. Nina began to study it with care.
“Yes, you were right,” she said. “It is some kind of crane.”
But as soon as the guest had let himself into his room, Nina forged ahead. Moving at a brisk pace along the carpet, they passed rooms 313, 314, and 315. They passed the little table with the statue of Hermes that stood outside the door of 316. Then with a certain dizziness, the Count realized that they were headed toward his old suite!
But wait.
We are ahead of ourselves. . . .
After the ill-fated night that ended on the second-floor steps, the Count had taken a break from his nightly aperitif, suspecting that the liquor had been an unhealthy influence on his mood. But this saintly abstinence did not prove a tonic to his soul. With so little to do and all the time in the world to do it, the Count’s peace of mind continued to be threatened by a sense of ennui—that dreaded mire of the human emotions.
And if this is how desultory one feels after three weeks, reflected the Count, then how desultory can one expect to feel after three years?
But for the virtuous who have lost their way, the Fates often provide a guide. On the island of Crete, Theseus had his Ariadne and her magical ball of thread to lead him safely from the lair of the Minotaur. Through those caverns where ghostly shadows dwell, Odysseus had his Tiresias just as Dante had his Virgil. And in the Metropol Hotel, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov had a nine-year-old girl by the name of Nina Kulikova.
For on the first Wednesday in July, as the Count sat in the lobby at a loss of what to do with himself, he happened to notice Nina zipping past with an unusually determined expression.
“Hello, my friend. Where are you headed?”
Turning about like one who’s been caught in the act, Nina composed herself, then answered with a wave of the hand:
“Around and about . . .”
The Count raised his eyebrows.
“And where is that exactly?”
. . .
“At this moment, the card room.”
“Ah. So you like to play at cards.”
“Not really . . .”
“Then why on earth are you going there?”
. . .
“Oh, come now,” the Count protested. “Surely, there are not going to be secrets between us!”
Nina weighed the Count’s remark, then looking once to her left and once to her right, she confided. She explained that while the card room was rarely used, at three o’clock on Wednesdays four women met there without fail for a regular game of whist; and if you arrived by two thirty and hid in the cupboard, you could hear their every word—which included a good deal of cursing; and when the ladies left, you could eat the rest of their cookies.
The Count sat upright.
“Where else do you spend your time?”
Again she weighed the Count’s remark, looked left and looked right.
“Meet me here,” she said, “tomorrow at two.”
And thus began the Count’s education.
Having lived at the Metropol for four years, the Count considered himself something of an expert on the hotel. He knew its staff by name, its services by experience, and the decorative styles of its suites by heart. But once Nina had taken him in hand, he realized what a novice he had been.
In the ten months that Nina had lived at the Metropol, she had been confronted with her own version of confinement. For, as her father had been posted only “temporarily” to Moscow, he had not bothered to enroll her in school. And as Nina’s governess still had one foot set firmly in the hinterlands, she preferred that her charge remain on the hotel’s premises where she was less likely to be corrupted by street lamps and trolley cars. So, if the door of the Metropol was known the world over for spinning without stop, it spun not for Nina. But, an enterprising and tireless spirit, the young lady had made the most of her situation by personally investigating the hotel until she knew every room, its purpose, and how it might be put to better use.
Yes, the Count had gone to the little window at the back of the lobby to ask for his mail, but had he been to the sorting room where the incoming envelopes were spilled on a table at ten and at two—including those that were stamped in red with the unambiguous instruction For Immediate Delivery?
And yes, he had visited Fatima’s in the days when it was open, but had he been inside the cutting room? Through a narrow door at the back of her shop was that niche with a light green counter where stems had been snipped and roses dethorned, where even now one could find scattered across the floor the dried petals of ten perennials essential to the making of potions.
Of course, exclaimed the Count to himself. Within the Metropol there were rooms behind rooms and doors behind doors. The linen closets. The laundries. The pantries. The switchboard!
It was like sailing on a steamship. Having enjoyed an afternoon shooting clay pigeons off the starboard bow, a passenger dresses for dinner, dines at the captain’s table, outplays the cocky French fellow at baccarat, and then strolls under the stars on the arm of a new acquaintance—all the while congratulating himself that he has made the most of a journey at sea. But in point of fact, he has only exposed himself to a glimpse of life on the ship—having utterly ignored those lower levels that teem with life and make the passage possible.
Nina had not contented herself with the views from the upper decks. She had gone below. Behind. Around. About. In the time that Nina had been in the hotel, the walls had not grown inward, they had grown outward, expanding in scope and intricacy. In her first weeks, the building had grown to encompass the life of two city blocks. In her first months, it had grown to encompass half of Moscow. If she lived in the hotel long enough, it would encompass all of Russia.
To initiate the Count’s course of study, Nina quite sensibly began at the bottom—the basement and its network of corridors and cul-de-sacs. Tugging open a heavy steel door, she led him first into the boiler room, where billows of steam escaped from a concertina of valves. With the aid of the Count’s handkerchief, she gingerly opened a small cast-iron door in the furnace to reveal the fire that burned day and night, and which happened to be the best place in the hotel to destroy secret messages and illicit love letters.
“You do receive illicit love letters, Count?”
“Most certainly.”
Next was the electrical room, where Nina’s admonition that the Count touch nothing was quite unnecessary, since the metallic buzzing and sulfurous smell would have counseled caution to the most reckless of adventurers. There, on the back wall amidst a confusion of wires, Nina showed him the very lever that, when pulled, could throw the ballroom into darkness, providing perfect cover for the snatching of pearls.
After a turn to the left and two to the right, they came to a small cluttered room—a sort of cabinet of curiosities—showcasing all the items that the hotel’s guests had left behind, such as umbrellas, Baedekers, and the weighty novels they had yet to finish
but could no longer bear to lug about. While tucked away in the corner, looking no worse for wear, were two small oriental rugs, a standing lamp, and the small satinwood bookcase that the Count had abandoned in his old suite.
At the far end of the basement, as the Count and Nina approached the narrow back stair, they passed a bright blue door.
“What do we have here?” asked the Count.
Nina looked uncharacteristically flummoxed.
“I don’t think I’ve been inside.”
The Count tried the knob.
“Ah, well. I’m afraid that it’s locked.”
But Nina looked left and looked right.
The Count followed suit.
Then she raised her hands under her hair and unhooked the delicate chain that she wore around her neck. Dangling at the bottom of the golden parabola was the pendant the Count had first observed at the Piazza, but it was neither a lucky charm nor locket. It was a passkey for the hotel!
Nina slid the key from its chain and handed it to the Count so that he could do the honors. Slipping it through the skull-shaped hole in the escutcheon, the Count turned gently and listened as the tumblers fell into place with a satisfying click. Then he opened the door and Nina gasped, for inside there was a treasure trove.
Quite literally.
On shelves that lined the walls from floor to ceiling was the hotel’s silver service, shimmering as if it had been polished that very morning.
“What is it all for?” she asked in amazement.
“For banquets,” replied the Count.
Alongside the stacks of Sèvres plates bearing the hotel’s insignia were samovars that stood two feet tall and soup tureens that looked like the goblets of the gods. There were coffeepots and gravy boats. There was an assortment of utensils, each of which had been designed with the greatest care to serve a single culinary purpose. From among them, Nina picked up what looked like a delicate spade with a plunger and an ivory handle. Depressing the lever, Nina watched as the two opposing blades opened and shut, then she looked to the Count in wonder.