A Gentleman in Moscow

The Count eats lunch in the second, less formal restaurant in the Metropol, which he calls the Piazza because it attracts “Russians cut from every cloth” (38) like “an extension of the city” (38).

The restaurant is empty, as it often is after the war, and a new, inexperienced waiter serves him. The waiter, whom the Count mentally nicknames “the Bishop” for his “narrow head” and “superior demeanor” (39), fails to appear when he places his menu down and offers the wrong kind of wine. The Count politely orders a bottle of the wine he’d prefer.

The Count is approached by a 9-year-old girl he has seen in the hotel many times. The little girl, who has “a penchant for yellow” (39), is “the daughter of a widowed Ukrainian bureaucrat” (40). She surprises him by asking what happened to his mustache. Sitting across from him, she asks if it’s true he’s a Count and whether he knows any princesses. When she suggests she’d like some of his lunch, the Count puts half his meal on a plate for her. The Bishop takes his soup before he is finished and fails to bring his wine.

The Count is taken aback when the little girl indicates that her father believes “princesses personify the decadence of a vanquished era” (42).