Rules of Civility - Amor Towles [125]
—Really? Was that him? We’ve sure made hay with that discovery!
—Wasn’t that who you meant?
—I don’t know. What I recall about this Galileo fellow is that he was the one who figured that a pendulum takes the same amount of time to swing two feet or two inches. This, of course, solved the mystery of the grandfather clock. Anyway, apparently he discovered this by watching a chandelier swing back and forth from the ceiling of a church. He would measure the duration of the swings by taking his pulse.
—That’s amazing.
—Isn’t it? Just by sitting in church. Ever since I learned that as a boy, I’ve let my mind wander during sermons. But I haven’t had a single revelation.
I laughed.
—Shhh, he said.
A canon appeared from one of the side chapels. He knelt, crossed himself, ascended into the sanctuary, and began to light the candles on the altar, preparing for the four o’clock mass. He was dressed in a long black robe. Watching him, Dicky’s face lit up as if he had just had his long awaited revelation.
—You’re Catholic!
I laughed again.
—No. I’m not particularly religious, but I was born Russian Orthodox.
Dicky whistled. It was loud enough that the canon looked back.
—That sounds formidable, he said.
—I don’t know about that. But for Easter, we’d fast all day and eat all night.
Dicky seemed to consider this carefully.
—I think I could do that.
—I think you could.
We were silent for a while. Then he leaned a little to his right.
—I haven’t seen you in a few days.
—I know.
—Are you going to tell me what’s going on?
We looked at each other now.
—It’s a long story, Dicky.
—Let’s go outside.
We sat on the cold steps with our forearms on our knees and I told him an abbreviated version of the same story that I had told Bitsy at the Ritz.
With a little more distance, and maybe a little more self-consciousness, I found myself telling it as if it were a Broadway romp. I was making the most of the coincidences and the surprises: Meeting Anne at the track! Eve refusing the proposal! Stumbling on Anne and Tinker at Chinoiserie!
—But this is the funniest part, I said.
Then I told him about discovering Washington’s Rules of Civility and what a numbskull I had been in not realizing that it was Tinker’s playbook. For illustration, I rattled off a few of Washington’s maxims with a snappy delivery.
But, whether it was from being on the steps of a church in December or from wisecracking about the father of our country, the humor didn’t seem to be coming across. As I hit the final lines, my voice faltered.
—That didn’t seem so funny, after all, I said.
—No, said Dicky.
He was suddenly more serious than usual. He clasped his hands and looked down at the steps. He didn’t say anything. It began to scare me a little.
—Do you want to get out of here? I asked.
—No. That’s all right. Let’s stay a moment.
He was silent.
—What are you thinking? I pressed.
He began to tap his feet on the steps in an uncharacteristically unfidgety way.
—What am I thinking? he said to himself. What am I thinking?
Dicky breathed in and exhaled, getting ready.
—I am thinking that maybe you’re being a little hard on this Tinker fellow.
He stopped tapping his feet and directed his attention across Fifth Avenue toward the deco-era statue of Atlas that holds up the heavens in front of Rockefeller Center. It was almost as if Dicky couldn’t quite look at me yet.
—So this Tinker fellow, he said—in the tone of one wishing to make sure that he’s got command of the facts—he was ousted from prep school when his father squandered his tuition. He goes to work and along the way he stumbles onto Lucrezia Borgia who lures him to New York with the promise of a foot in the door. You all meet by chance. And though he seems to have a thing for you, he ends up taking in your friend who’s been smashed up by a milk truck, until she brushes him off. Then his brother sort of brushes him off too. . . .
I found myself looking at the ground.
—Is that about it? Dicky asked sympathetically.
—Yes, I said.
—And before you knew all of this, all of this about Anne Grandyn