“The duke was less interested in supporting roles,” she said. “He thought people might want to see him in a more central … you know. Apparently, he has family in hiding in some monastery in Russia, and they need to earn money to get them. So supporting roles or ‘even in background,’ Olga said. She didn’t know the word for ‘extra,’ so I had to tell her.”

“All right, then,” he said. Paper hat, paper hat. He shook his head. “But still. Dear God.” He straightened his jacket, grabbed the unusually thick stack of afternoon papers off the receptionist’s desk, and was out the door, where Kono awaited him at the car.

…

He fumbled with the headlines in the backseat. There was news of the Saint-Mihiel offensive and its assorted victories, which he read but did not, strictly speaking, see. He was trying to unravel the afternoon’s events, peeling back first the awful thoughts that led to a knot in the pit of his stomach.

He drummed his fingers on the seat, which seemed strangely unyielding, and he realized that, in his haste, he had taken not just the papers but the studio guestbook. He opened it. The last lines were filled out by Prince Meshchersky. He was surprised to see they were filled out in English.

15-Sept-18

Meshchersky. V. V. Lord of Pokrovskoe and Petrovskoe; Heir to Lotoshino; Duke and master of the Vesholi-Podol palace in Poltava; entitled noble ruling the estate of Petrovskoye-Alabino; humble penitent at the monastery of Solnechny Strana.

Chaplin marveled at the world so easily lost. Lord of what? Heir to which? The Meshchersky line was over, the revolution had left them in permanent transition, and in the search for work as an extra, the résumé item of ruling an estate did not count nearly as much as the ability not to look into the camera.

He thought of Samuel Goldwyn conspiring with Zukor and the rest, and he wondered if, indeed, all was vanity.

“Humble penitent at the monastery of Solnechny Strana.” Its placement at the end announced pride in humility. If the prince could have but one honor back, would he choose that place, or the palace, the lordship?

He decided that Prince Meshchersky longed most for the place where he had been neither ruler nor noble, but humble penitent, and Chaplin chose to believe that the monastery stood awaiting his return, even if the revolution said otherwise.

He should have been nicer to Pickford. When he heard the word “mother,” it was like “igloo” or “Portugal,” something he could imagine and which he knew other people had a homespun fondness for. He wished Shoulder Arms had this feeling in it.