A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

In point of fact, Emile Zhukovsky began his days in a state of the blackest pessimism. The very moment he looked out from under his covers, he met existence with a scowl, knowing it to be a cold and unforgiving condition. Having had his worst suspicions confirmed by the morning papers, at eleven o’clock he would be waiting at the curb for a crowded tram to rattle him to the hotel while muttering, “What a world.” But as the day unfolded, hour by hour Emile’s pessimism would slowly give way to the possibility that all was not lost. This rosier perspective would begin building quietly around noon, when he came into his kitchen and saw his copper pots. Hanging from their hooks, still shining from the previous night’s scrubbing, they seemed to suggest an indisputable sense of possibility. Stepping into the cooler, he would hoist a side of lamb over his shoulder, and when he dropped it on the counter with a satisfying thump, his worldview would brighten by another hundred lumens. Such that by 3:00, when he heard the sound of root vegetables being chopped and smelled the aroma of garlic being sizzled, Emile might begrudgingly acknowledge that existence had its consolations. Then at 5:30, if everything seemed in order, he might allow himself to sample the wine that he’d been cooking with—just to polish off the bottle, you understand; waste not want not; neither a borrower nor a lender be. And at around 6:25, that dark humor which had seemed at dawn to be the very foundation of Emi...

Looking up from the fennel, Emile met the eye of the Count and smiled. In an instant the Count could see that the chef was in rosy form. Having sensed at two that all might not be lost, at half past midnight the chef hadn’t the slightest doubt that the sun would shine tomorrow, that most people were generous at heart, and that, when all was said and done, things tended to work out for the best.