And Pyotr's accent is Russian, a mingling of the Capital and the steppe -- but like most men of his era and social class, he thinks of French as the language of gentility.

"Such was my fortune," he agrees. "My old patroness, Nina Kaina -- and her rival, the senior Victoria Olgimskaya. They were the Dark and White Mistresses of the town on the Gorkhon River, a place where dreams sank their feet into the mud and left footprints on the waking world. There was a third as well," he acknowledges with a slight shrug. "The Mistress of Earth, Katerina Saburova...but she amounted to very little, even before morphine sank its hooks into her."

Belatedly remembering the next step in the dance of manners, he gestures back at the settee where he'd just been lounging and awkwardly mutters, "Ah, would you like to sit?"