Table for Two

by Amor Towles

if Irina was quiet, she was quiet the way a heated skillet is quiet—in the moments before you drop in the fat. For while Pushkin had enjoyed watching the young man’s words float past, Irina’s consciousness had closed upon them like the jaws of a trap. With an audible snap, she had taken hold and had no intention of letting go. In fact, so tight was her grip on the young man’s arguments, should he ever want them back, he would have to gnaw through his own phrases the way a wolf in a trap gnaws through its ankle.

this endearing rhythm of interaction whenever he met someone new. It began with a question, followed by an expression of surprise, a wistful admission, then a vow—all capped off by a toast. “Where are you from?” he would ask, or “Where are you headed?” “You don’t say!” “I wish I could go there one day . . .” “I will go there one day!” “To X—!” That sequence of conversation isn’t so uncommon, you might protest. Maybe not. But what made Smitty’s approach so unusual was that he took each step in the sequence so sincerely. He was genuinely curious about where you were from or where you were headed. He was genuinely surprised by some aspect of your answer. He was genuinely wistful, wishing that he too had been where you’d been. And when he vowed to go there, everyone seemed to share in his excitement.

nodding my head to express my general amazement—my amazement at the doggedness of character, at the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, and at a wife’s unflagging ability to be surprised by what should no longer be surprising.

he knew when all was said and done, he was an impostor. He had sat in the fifth row at Carnegie Hall for every Saturday night in April because, as a Manhattanite in his midthirties with a six-figure salary and an Ivy League education, that’s what he thought he should be doing.

you could tell you were in the presence of some form of perfection. For not only was the music uplifting, each individual phrase seemed to follow so naturally, so inevitably upon the last that a slumbering spirit deep within you, suddenly awakened, was saying: Of course, of course, of course . . .

Bobby was once considered a prodigy in the field of acquisitions and divestments. In fact, this skill came so naturally to him, he acquired and divested four different wives.

The dress she’s wearing has gone in and out of style twice since she bought it in 1962, and she applies her makeup with all the misplaced generosity of a Rockette.

Family traits are passed down from generation to generation out of the impenetrable past with no discernible point of origin, but family wealth must begin somewhere.

She laughed again, and he smiled to hear it. There was nothing jaded or ugly about her laughter. On the contrary, it was the laugh of one who knows well the foibles of others without begrudging them.

raised a stalling hand. —Don’t pity me for it. Are there elements of stardom that I miss? Why, there are elements of boarding school that I miss. There are elements of my most catastrophic romances that I miss. So let us agree that missing is not at the heart of the matter.

as the minutes dismantled the hours. In the early

Litsky called it human nature—which is just a fancy term for the God-given flaws we have no intention of giving back.

The personality of a man always poses the biggest obstacle to his own education, thought Charlie. He’s either too proud, too stubborn, or too timid to submit to the process of discovery. Many of life’s lessons come through trial or tribulation, and the cost of those lessons shouldn’t be taken lightly. But at least half of what a man hasn’t learned in his lifetime he could have learned with ease. This is one of the insights that comes with age—when one understands the nature of discovery but no longer has the time or energy to submit to its splendors. Thus, we are doomed to end our days in an ignorance largely of our own making.

I want to hear what’s happened no matter how ugly, or uncomfortable, or unnerving it might be. Because if we don’t stare down the things that make us want to look away, then the world is just a mirage.