The Uncommitted Man

IT IS AUGUST 10, 1862, in Baden-Baden, a German resort town in the Black Forest region popular for gambling and the supposedly salubrious effects of taking the waters (that is, bathing in or drinking from the local springs). The town is packed with travelers from across Europe—well-to-do, down-at-the-heels, and everything in between—including a large contingent of Russians: generals, cadets, aristocrats (some flush, others broke), retired civil servants, schemers, gamblers, tipplers, exiles, radicals, reactionaries, gossipmongers, self-proclaimed geniuses, surly poets, and garden-variety windbags. Amid this babble sits Grigori Mikhailovich Litvinov, a young man not quite 30, on his way back to Russia after some years abroad in Western Europe, with plans to reform the family estate, “confident of his abilities and prospects, and of the benefits for his neighbors, even for the whole district.” He has stopped in Baden-Baden to meet with his fiancée Tatiana (or Tania) and her aunt, who will arrive in a few days. All appears well—until a bouquet of heliotropes and a chance encounter with someone from the past change everything.