Table for Two

by Amor Towles

“Dismissed!” shouted Irina that night in their little apartment. “How does one get fired from Communism!”

For to serve the ones we love and receive their approval in return, need life be any more complicated than that?

The human race is famously adaptive, but there is nothing that a human will adapt to more quickly than an improved standard of living.

Not for nothing have writers been called wordsmiths for centuries. The craft of writing demands all the specialized training and physical stamina of the blacksmith. The serious writer sweats at the forge of his imagination while hammering out sentences on the anvil of language, and so on. Where better for an aspiring writer to earn his daily bread than right in the blacksmith’s shop?

I’m afraid I cannot offer you much in the way of wages, but what I can offer is a delightful harbor for one who hopes to sail the seas of literature.” And since Timothy could not have put it better himself, he took the job on the spot.

As I stood there in the customer service line thinking of all that had just transpired, what I found myself hoping, what I found myself almost praying for, was that despite all my flaws, when the time came, as it surely would, my wife would be willing to fight for me as hard as Jennifer had fought for her husband. My wife, her name is Ellen.

Some might find this ironic. But there’s nothing particularly ironic about a curse. In fact, a curse is the opposite of irony. Because it intends to mean exactly what it sounds like it means, word for word, note for note, in every possible respect.

One benefit of speaking to the pompous is that their presumption of superiority is so strong, they are rarely guarded in what they have to say. If you set the mood and give them a little shove, they will pontificate accordingly.

—Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice. . . . The blonde raised a questioning eyebrow. —Shakespeare, Olivia confessed. Courtesy of my mother. —What else did your mother teach you? Olivia considered. —A lady never finishes a cigarette, a drink, or a meal.

—My mother told me it was more important to be interested than interesting. —Have you heeded her advice? —Only as a last resort.

—That perch is for the parched.

—So what do you do, Mr. Litsky? He stirred his ice cubes with a finger. —I’m a member of the fourth estate. —A journalist? she said, taking out a cigarette. Well, that must be fascinating in a town like this. Tell me all about it.

Marcus had learned this in his early days as a litigator in Arkansas. In the jury box of the Pulaski County Courthouse (in any jury box in

the country, for that matter), one could expect to find a sample of the human condition: a patchwork of intellects and experiences, personalities and prejudices.

That is how Marcus extricated David from that lawsuit back in Arkansas. Thanks to the papers, weeks before the trial the good people of Little Rock already knew that David Selznick was a Hollywood mogul.

She pointed to the seven stacks of paper. —Do you buy that stuff by the pound? —You jest, Miss Ross. But my father ran a feed store in Arkansas.

Aunt Polly recognized the infallibility of her deity in all respects but one: He had made summer days too long.

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.

Every story has a moral, Doherty used to say, but most have more than two.