A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

Vyshinsky: And your occupation? Rostov: It is not the business of gentlemen to have occupations. Vyshinsky: Very well then. How do you spend your time? Rostov: Dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting. The usual rigmarole.

History has shown charm to be the final ambition of the leisure class.

The sky was the very blue that the cupolas of St. Basil’s had been painted for. Their pinks, greens, and golds shimmered as if it were the sole purpose of a religion to cheer its Divinity.

if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.

imagining what might happen if one’s circumstances were different was the only sure route to madness.

a man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them,

not only is a duel central to the action of Onegin, one occurs at a critical juncture in War and Peace, Fathers and Sons, and The Brothers Karamazov!

“The principle here is that a new generation owes a measure of thanks to every member of the previous generation. Our elders planted fields and fought in wars; they advanced the arts and sciences, and generally made sacrifices on our behalf. So by their efforts, however humble, they have earned a measure of our gratitude and respect.”

pomp is a tenacious force. And a wily one too. How humbly it bows its head as the emperor is dragged down the steps and tossed in the street. But then, having quietly bided its time, while helping the newly appointed leader on with his jacket, it compliments his appearance and suggests the wearing of a medal or two.

Sitting back down, the Count put one foot on the edge of the coffee table and tilted back until his chair was balanced on its two hind legs, then he turned to the opening sentence: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. “Marvelous,” said the Count.

“Don’t be such a fuddy-duddy.” “I am not a fuddy-duddy.” “Can you be so sure?” “A man can never be entirely sure that he is not a fuddy-duddy. That is axiomatic to the term.”

take that bureaucrat on the dais with his gavel. Surely, he can afford a tailored jacket and a creased pair of pants. If he is wearing this ragged fare, it is in order to assure all assembled that he too is a hardened member of the working class!

Here, indeed, was a formidable sentence—one that was on intimate terms with the comma, and that held the period in healthy disregard.

the objection being raised was not due to the phrase’s overall lack of verve; rather it was due to the word facilitate. Specifically, the verb had been accused of being so tepid and prim that it failed to do justice to the labors of the men in the room.

“It is the business of the times to change, Mr. Halecki. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them.”

freedom of the will has been a well-established tenet of moral philosophy since the time of the Greeks. And though the Count’s days of romancing were behind him, it goes against the nature of even the well-meaning gentleman to recommend that lovely young ladies leave his company on the basis of hypotheses.

Fate would not have the reputation it has if it simply did what it seemed it would do.

he paused before the three-legged bureau and tilted his head to give its base a second look. “The Essays of Montaigne?” “Yes,” affirmed the Count. “I gather they didn’t agree with you.” “On the contrary. I found them to be the perfect height.

it was no longer enough for a poet to write verse. Now, a poem must spring from a school with its own manifesto and stake its claim on the moment by means of the first-person plural and the future tense, with rhetorical questions and capital letters and an army of exclamation points!

Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead. And when this occurs—this extraordinary realignment of the stars—the man so long out of step with his times experiences a supreme lucidity.

she had taken the liberty of ordering herself an hors d’oeuvre. “Quite sensible,” said the Count. At that moment, the Bishop appeared, carrying a small tower of ice creams. “The hors d’oeuvre?” “Oui,” Nina replied.

“I’ll have the same,” said our serious young lady. The same! And then she glanced at her hopeful young acquaintance with a touch of that tenderness that Natasha had shown Pierre in War and Peace at the end of Volume Two.

Young love, thought the Count with a smile. There is nothing novaya about it.

According to the twice-tolling clock, it was only eleven. So with his port in one hand and A Christmas Carol in the other, the Count tilted back his chair and dutifully waited for the chime of twelve.

before he could lift a finger, she had taken the knife and serving fork in hand. And as she began to relate the professional obligations that had commandeered her afternoon, she scored the fish’s spine with the tip of the knife and made diagonal cuts at its head and tail. Then slipping the serving fork between the fish’s spine and its flesh, she deftly liberated the filet. In a few succinct movements, she had served portions of the fennel and olives, and topped the filet with the charred lemon. Handing the Count this perfectly prepared plate, she plucked the spine from the fish and served herself the second filet with accompaniments—an operation that took no more than a minute. Then placing the serving utensils on the platter, she turned her attention to the wine. Good God, thought the Count.

as she talked, the Count had to acknowledge once again the virtues of withholding judgment. After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli.

“There’s certainly some allure to the idea of a fresh start; but how could I relinquish my memories of home, of my sister, of my school years.” The Count gestured to the table. “How could I relinquish my memory of this?” And Anna Urbanova, having put her napkin on her plate and pushed back her chair, came round the table, took the Count by the collar, and kissed him on the mouth.

to be a step ahead in romance is exhausting. But to be a step behind? To be seduced? Why, that was a matter of leaning back in one’s chair, sipping one’s wine, and responding to a query with the very first thought that has popped into one’s head. And yet, paradoxically, if being a step behind was more relaxing than being a step ahead, it was also more exciting.

While, as a rule, the Count always took the stairs, when he approached the second-floor landing that night, on some ghostly whim he called for the elevator, assuming he would have it to himself. But when the doors slid open, there was the one-eyed cat. “Kutuzov!” he exclaimed in surprise. Taking in every detail of the Count’s appearance, the cat responded exactly as the Grand Duke had responded under similar circumstances many years before—that is, with a stern look and a disappointed silence. “Ahem,” said the Count, as he stepped onto the elevator while trying to tuck in his shirt without dropping his shoes.

To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?

what is more versatile? As at home in tin as it is in Limoges, coffee can energize the industrious at dawn, calm the reflective at noon, or raise the spirits of the beleaguered in the middle of the night.

If patience wasn’t so easily tested, then it would hardly be a virtue.

“Chekhov and Tolstoy.” The German let out a grunt. “Yes, yes. I know what you’re going to say: that every nation has its poets in the pantheon. But with Chekhov and Tolstoy, we Russians have set the bronze bookends on the mantelpiece of narrative.

Dark, cold, and snowbound, Russia has the sort of climate in which the spirit of Christmas burns brightest. And that is why Tchaikovsky seems to have captured the sound of it better than anyone else.

exile was the punishment that God meted out to Adam in the very first chapter of the human comedy; and that He meted out to Cain a few pages later. Yes, exile was as old as mankind. But the Russians were the first people to master the notion of sending a man into exile at home.

History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair.

Like some dauntless explorer, she seems ready to place her flag in a polar ice cap and claim it in the name of Inevitability. But I can’t help suspecting that all the while, her happiness may be waiting in another latitude altogether.”