Rules of Civility

by Amor Towles

—I’m willing to be under anything, she said, as long as it isn’t somebody’s thumb.

He had that certain confidence in his bearing, that democratic interest in his surroundings, and that understated presumption of friendliness that are only found in young men who have been raised in the company of money and manners. It didn’t occur to people like this that they might be unwelcome in a new environment—and as a result, they rarely were.

be careful when choosing what you’re proud of—because the world has every intention of using it against you.

With her hair pulled back, Wyss (short for Wisteria!) seemed as prim and miserable as a schoolmarm.

For starters, you could hardly blame them. Balmy breezes, turquoise seas, Caribbean rum, these are well-established aphrodisiacs. But so too are proximity and necessity and the threat of despair. If, as was painfully apparent in March, Tinker and Eve had both lost something essential of themselves in that car crash, in Florida they had helped each other gain a bit of it back.

No matter how much you think of yourself, no matter how long you’ve lived in Hollywood or Hyde Park, a brown Bentley is going to catch your eye. There couldn’t be more than a few hundred of them in the world and every aspect is designed with envy in mind. The fenders rise over the wheels and drop to the running boards in the wide, lazy curve of an odalisque at rest, while the white walls of the tires look as improbably spotless as the spats on Fred Astaire. You can just tell that whoever is sitting in the backseat has the wherewithal to grant your wishes in threes.

It seemed like every country in the world had stamps of statesmen and motorcars. Where were the stamps of the elevator boys and hapless housewives? Of the six-story walk-ups and soured wine?

Whatever setbacks he had faced in his life, he said, however daunting or dispiriting the unfolding of events, he always knew that he would make it through, as long as when he woke in the morning he was looking forward to his first cup of coffee. Only decades later would I realize that he had been giving me a piece of advice.

Uncompromising purpose and the search for eternal truth have an unquestionable sex appeal for the young and high-minded; but when a person loses the ability to take pleasure in the mundane—in the cigarette on the stoop or the gingersnap in the bath—she has probably put herself in unnecessary danger. What my father was trying to tell me, as he neared the conclusion of his own course, was that this risk should not be treated lightly: One must be prepared to fight for one’s simple pleasures and to defend them against elegance and erudition and all manner of glamorous enticements.

—To getting out of ruts,

But for me, dinner at a fine restaurant was the ultimate luxury. It was the very height of civilization. For what was civilization but the intellect’s ascendancy out of the doldrums of necessity (shelter, sustenance and survival) into the ether of the finely superfluous (poetry, handbags and haute cuisine)? So removed from daily life was the whole experience that when all was rotten to the core, a fine dinner could revive the spirits. If and when I had twenty dollars left to my name, I was going to invest it right here in an elegant hour that couldn’t be hocked.

Pembroke was forty years behind the times. On my first day on the job I could tell that the editors at Pembroke were nothing like their younger counterparts around town. Not only did they have manners, they thought them worth preserving. They treated the opening of a door for a lady or the hand-scripted regret the way an archaeologist treats a fragment of pottery—with all the loving care that we normally reserve for things that matter. Terrance Taylor definitely wouldn’t have hailed a cab away from you in the rain; Beekman Canon wouldn’t have let the elevator door close as you approached; and Mr. Parish would never have raised his fork before you raised yours—he would sooner have starved.

—When shall we two meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

—When the hurlyburly’s done. When the battle’s lost and won.

In our households, nostalgia played a distant fiddle to acknowledgment of the sacrifices made by forebears on your behalf.

For the Bergdorf’s windows weren’t advertising unsold inventory at 30 % off. They were designed to change the lives of women up and down the avenue—offering envy to some, self-satisfaction to others, but a glimpse of possibility to all.

But you’ve got to understand. I was brought up to raise children, pigs & corn and to thank the Good Lord for the privilege. But I’ve learned a thing or two since the accident. And I like it just fine on this side of the windshield.

She was willing to be under anything, as long as it wasn’t somebody’s thumb.

—There’s a pretty clear difference between physical and emotional needs, she continued. Women like you and I understand this. Most women don’t. Or they’re unwilling to admit it. When it comes to love, most women insist that the emotional and physical aspects of a relationship be inextricably intertwined. To suggest to them otherwise is like trying to convince them that their children might not love them one day. Their very survival depends upon believing otherwise, no matter what history suggests to the contrary. Of course, there are plenty of women who turn a blind eye to their husbands’ indiscretions, but most of them are miserable about it. They perceive it as a tear in the fabric of their lives. But if one of those women were to look coolly into herself, when her husband comes into a restaurant a half an hour late smelling of Chanel No. 5, she’s probably more angry about being kept waiting than about the perfume on his collar. But as I say—I think we see eye to eye on all this. And that’s why I asked you here instead of Tinker. I think that you and I may come to an understanding that serves Tinker well. An understanding in which we all get what we want.

—Most people have more needs than wants. That’s why they live the lives they do. But the world is run by those whose wants outstrip their needs.

I slipped my hand down her pants and deposited the key.

Eve, Hank, Wallace. Suddenly, all the people of valor were gone. One by one, they had glittered and disappeared, leaving behind those who couldn’t free themselves from their wants: like Anne and Tinker and me.