An epic bildungsroman of betrayal, sacrifice, and the tragedy of history by the celebrated, bestselling author of My Armenian Friend.

"What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?" ~ Baudelaire
Such is the spirit of this lapidary saga of Valdas Bataeff, survivor of a century of fury and blood. As a young man facing his era's tragic events , he escapes the world's cruelty at the height of the storm: an enchanted interlude of clandestine love between the old calendar of imperial Russia and the new chronology imposed by the Bolsheviks. But fate's ways are mysterious and transcend the barbarous human comedy, lending the fragile brevity of wounded love an aspect of eternity. A concise masterpiece that reimagines history's great dramas from a human perspective.