I knocked loudly on the door. “Why didn’t Athene leave it with Voltaire?” I grumbled. “He’s the one who’s her votary. It would have been interesting to meet him.”

A servant opened the door, a flunkey in a wig. “We wish to see Florent-Claude,” I said.

“The Marquis du Chastellet,” Pico added.

“And your names?” the flunkey asked, superciliously.

“The Comte de Mirandola, the Marquis de Delos and the Duc d’Athen,” Pico replied immediately, in Italianate French.

The flunkey bowed and went back inside. “Marquis? Duke?” I asked. He really was the Count of Mirandola, or course, or he had been two hundred or so years before.

“Did you want me to say god and philosopher on the doorstep?” Pico asked. “I’m sure there was a Duke of Athens.”

“Not in 1750,” I said. “He told the servant you were a member of the high Athenian nobility,” I explained to Sokrates.

“You’re mixing me up with Plato again,” Sokrates said. “He was descended from Solon on his mother’s side, and on his father’s side from the ancient kings of Attica. I was a simple stonemason before I became a philosopher, and my only illustrious ancestor was the artificer Daedalus.”

The flunkey came back. “The marquis will see you.”

He showed us into one of those uncomfortable eighteenth-century rooms, all spindly little chairs matching the gilt frames on all the paintings. Sokrates looked at all of it in wonder.

“I’m afraid you’re not going to understand any of the conversation,” I said.

“I’ve always been terrible at learning barbarian languages,” Sokrates said, almost as if this were a point of pride. “Do they have Workers here?”

“No, we’re more than two centuries before the first Workers,” I said.

“Then who wove this carpet so finely, and then put it on the floor?” he asked.

Before I could respond, the flunkey opened the door again and announced his master. We all bowed, Sokrates very badly as he wasn’t familiar with the custom.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” Florent-Claude said.

“We met once, when I was here staying with Emilie,” Pico said. “Such a loss.” They bowed to each other.

“Ah yes. The Comte de Mirandola. I recognize you now. The years haven’t touched you at all.”