A Gentleman in Moscow

by Amor Towles

Vyshinsky: Before we begin, I must say, I do not think that I have ever seen a jacket festooned with so many buttons. Rostov: Thank you. Vyshinsky: It was not meant as a compliment. Rostov: In that case, I demand satisfaction on the field of honor. [Laughter.]

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

Their pinks, greens, and golds shimmered as if it were the sole purpose of a religion to cheer its Divinity.

“A king fortifies himself with a castle,” observed the Count, “a gentleman with a desk.”

Arriving late, thought the Count with a sigh. What a delicacy of youth.

From the earliest age, we must learn to say good-bye to friends and family. We see our parents and siblings off at the station; we visit cousins, attend schools, join the regiment; we marry, or travel abroad. It is part of the human experience that we are constantly gripping a good fellow by the shoulders and wishing him well, taking comfort from the notion that we will hear word of him soon enough.

He had emerged from behind the walls of the Kremlin like an aviator from the wreckage of a crash.

that adversity presents itself in many forms; and that if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.

Life will entice, after all.

By Diverse Means We Arrive at the Same End

The commonest way of softening the hearts of those we have offended, when, vengeance in hand, they hold us at their mercy, is by submission to move them to commiseration and pity. However, audacity and steadfastness—entirely contrary means—have sometimes served to produce the same effect. . . .

“Your Excellency . . . May I ask a personal question?” “By all means.” He gestured almost shyly to the Grand Duke’s desk. “Can we expect more verses from you?” The Count offered an appreciative smile. “I am sorry to say, Konstantin, that my days of poetry are behind me.” “If your days of poetry are behind you, Count Rostov, then it is we who are sorry.”

But every period has its virtues, even a time of turmoil. . .

refined ingredients became as scarce in Moscow as butterflies at sea.

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

For as a single volume, it had the density of a dictionary or Bible—those books that one expects to consult, or possibly peruse, but never read.

“By Diverse Means We Arrive at the Same End.” In this opening essay—in which examples were expertly drawn from the annals of history—the author provided a most convincing argument that when one is at another’s mercy one should plead for one’s life. Or remain proud and unbent.

sadness is an emotion best shared.

In short, Fatima knew a flower’s fragrance, color, and purpose better than a bee.

For rather than being tools of self-discovery, mirrors tended to be tools of self-deceit.

The Count took pride in wearing a well-tailored jacket; but he took greater pride in knowing that a gentleman’s presence was best announced by his bearing, his remarks, and his manners. Not by the cut of his coat.

Was the minding of one’s own business no longer a subject taught in schools?

“Why is it that our nation above all others embraced the duel so wholeheartedly?” he asked the stairwell rhetorically. Some, no doubt, would simply dismiss it as a by-product of barbarism. Given Russia’s long, heartless winters, its familiarity with famine, its rough sense of justice, and so on, and so on, it was perfectly natural for its gentry to adopt an act of definitive violence as the means of resolving disputes.

But in the Count’s considered opinion, the reason that dueling prevailed among Russian gentlemen stemmed from nothing more than their passion for the glorious and grandiose.

In fact, over the years, as the locations for duels became more picturesque and the pistols more finely manufactured, the best-bred men proved willing to defend their honor over lesser and lesser offenses.

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.”

“Manners are not like bonbons, Nina. You may not choose the ones that suit you best; and you certainly cannot put the half-bitten ones back in the box. . .

“And I will be sure to say please and thank you whenever I ask for things. But I have no intention of thanking people for things I never asked for in the first place.”

the liquor had been an unhealthy influence on his mood.

But for the virtuous who have lost their way, the Fates often provide a guide.

In the time that Nina had been in the hotel, the walls had not grown inward, they had grown outward, expanding in scope and intricacy.

For pomp is a tenacious force. And a wily one too.

“If only I were there and she were here,” she sighed. And there, thought the Count, was a suitable plaint for all mankind.

generally clamor about the world’s oldest problems in its newest nomenclature.

Of course, there is now more canvas than cashmere in the room, more gray than gold. But is the patch on the elbow really that much different from the epaulette on the shoulder? Aren’t those workaday caps donned, like the bicorne and shako before them, in order to strike a particular note? Or 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!

“With all due respect to poetic concision,

Laughed1

After all, I think we can agree without exaggeration or fear of contradiction that the times have changed.”

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

The manager looked to the Count with an expression of profound gratitude—that someone should understand what he had said so perfectly no further explication was required.

For the times do, in fact, change. They change relentlessly. Inevitably. Inventively. And as they change, they set into bright relief not only outmoded honorifics and hunting horns, but silver summoners and mother-of-pearl opera glasses and all manner of carefully crafted things that have outlived their usefulness.

like demigods of ancient myth, they watched in three different ways: the first through the eyes of the innocent, the second through the eyes of the romantic, and the third through the eyes of the skeptic.

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

While the splendors that elude us in youth are likely to receive our casual contempt in adolescence and our measured consideration in adulthood, they forever hold us in their thrall.

For the Grand Duke the question was, of course, rhetorical. Confronted with a report of a failed semester or an unpaid bill, the Grand Duke would summon his godson to his library, read the letter aloud, drop it on his desk, and ask the question without expectation of a response, knowing full well that the answer was imprisonment, bankruptcy, or both. For his grandmother, who tended to ask the question when the Count had said something particularly scandalous, What is to become of you, Alexander? was an admission to all in earshot that here was her favorite, so you needn’t expect her to rein in his behavior. But when Helena asked the question, she did so as if the answer were a genuine mystery. As if, despite her brother’s erratic studies and carefree ways, the world had yet to catch a glimpse of the man he was bound to become. “What is to become of you, Alexander?” Helena would ask. “That is the question,” the Count would agree. And then he would lie back in the grass and gaze thoughtfully at the figure eights of the fireflies as if he too were pondering this essential enigma.

“It will be an extraordinary assembly. An extraordinary assembly at an extraordinary time. Akhmatova, Bulgakov, Mayakovksy, Mandelstam—the sort of writers who not long ago couldn’t have dined at the same table without fear of arrest—will all be there. Yes, over the years they have championed their differing styles, but in June they will gather to forge novaya poeziya, a new poetry. One that is universal, Sasha. One that doesn’t hesitate and needn’t kowtow. One that has the human spirit as its subject and the future as its muse!”

“As an archeologist, when Thomsen divided the ages of man into Stone, Bronze, and Iron, naturally enough, he did so in accordance with the physical tools that defined each epoch. But what of man’s spiritual development? What of his moral development?

In our time, we may witness the end of ignorance, the end of oppression, and the advent of the brotherhood of man.”

Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead.

The bells of Ascension . . . When the Count had passed through Petrovskoye in 1918 on his hurried return from Paris, he had come upon a gathering of peasants milling in mute consternation before the monastery’s walls. The Red Cavalry, it seems, had arrived that morning with a caravan of empty wagons. At the instruction of their young captain, a troop of Cossacks had climbed the campanile and heaved the bells from the steeple one by one. When it came time to heave the Great Bell, a second troop of Cossacks was sent up the stairs. The old giant was hoisted from its hook, balanced on the rail, and tipped into the air, where it somersaulted once before landing in the dust with a thud.

“It is a sad but unavoidable fact of life,” he began, “that as we age our social circles grow smaller. Whether from increased habit or diminished vigor, we suddenly find ourselves in the company of just a few familiar faces. So I view it as an incredible stroke of good fortune at this stage in my life to have found such a fine new friend.”