A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (2016, read in 2020)

“Vyshinsky: Why did you write the poem? Rostov: It demanded to be written. I simply happened to be sitting at the particular desk on the particular morning when it chose to make its demands.”

“What a marvel it had been to discover the table that folded away without a trace; and the drawers built into the base of the bed; and the wall-mounted lamps just large enough to illuminate a page. This efficiency of design was music to the young mind. It attested to a precision of purpose and the promise of adventure.”

“The three of them exhibited the same bewildered gaze that the Count had noticed on the faces of Arkady and Valentina a few hours before, and finally it struck him: When he had been carted off that morning, they had all assumed that he would never return. He had emerged from behind the walls of the Kremlin like an aviator from the wreckage of a crash.”

“On the Grand Duke’s desk stood a champagne flute and a brandy snifter. With the lean uprightness of the former looking down upon the squat rotundity of the latter, one could not help but think of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the plains of the Sierra Morena.”

“On the Grand Duke’s desk stood a champagne flute and a brandy snifter. With the lean uprightness of the former looking down upon the squat rotundity of the latter, one could not help but think of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on the plains of the Sierra Morena. Or of Robin Hood and Friar Tuck in the shadows of Sherwood Forest. Or of Prince Hal and Falstaff before the gates of—”

“The books the bellhops had lugged to the attic had been his father’s and, devoted as they were to studies of rational philosophy and the science of modern agriculture, each promised heft and threatened impenetrability.”

““Thank you for the thought, Andrey. Normally, I would leap at the chance. But tonight, I am otherwise committed.””

“But as the Count advanced through Essays Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen, his goal seemed to recede into the distance. It was suddenly as if the book were not a dining room table at all, but a sort of Sahara. And having emptied his canteen, the Count would soon be crawling across its sentences with the peak of each hard-won page revealing but another page beyond.”

“Coming off the wide marble steps that descended from the lobby, one first passed the newsstand, which offered a gentleman a hundred headlines, albeit now just in Russian.”

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

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

“having torn through the first fifty pages of Herr Flammenhescher’s little monograph, Mikhail would leap to his feet and start pacing from corner to corner in order to voice his fervid agreement or furious dissent with the author’s thesis, his style, or his use of punctuation.”

“But events can unfold in such a manner that overnight the man out of step finds himself in the right place at the right time. The fashions and attitudes that had seemed so alien to him are suddenly swept aside and supplanted by fashions and attitudes in perfect sympathy with his deepest sentiments. Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead.”

“As midnight approached, the Rostov siblings would stumble from their second or third visit in search of their sleigh. Their laughter would echo under the stars and their steps would weave in wide curves back and forth across the straight tracks that they had made upon their arrival—such that in the morning their hosts would find the giant figure of a G clef transcribed by their boots in the snow.”

“The Rioja? Now there was a wine that would clash with the stew as Achilles clashed with Hector. It would slay the dish with a blow to the head and drag it behind its chariot until it tested the fortitude of every man in Troy. Besides, it plainly cost three times what the young man could afford.”

“Setting the empty box aside, the Count nodded again to the cat, pulled the strands of the second bow, and lifted the second lid . . . only to discover a third box. Dutifully, the Count repeated the debowing and unlidding with the next three boxes, until he held one the size of a matchbox. But when he untied the bow and lifted the lid on this box, inside the cozy chamber, strung on a bit of the dark green ribbon, was Nina’s passkey to the hotel.”

“And 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. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”

“[…] here in suite 208 in the company of charred lemons, French wine, and memories of the sea,”

“Yes, a ghost, thought the Count, as he moved silently down the hall. Like Hamlet’s father roaming the ramparts of Elsinore after the midnight watch . . . Or like Akaky Akakievich, that forsaken spirit of Gogol’s who in the wee hours haunted the Kalinkin Bridge in search of his stolen coat”

““When the lilacs are in bloom, the bees’ll buzz to the Alexander Gardens and the honey’ll taste like the lilacs. But in a week or so, they’ll be buzzing to the Garden Ring, and then you’ll be tasting the cherry trees.” “The Garden Ring! How far will they go?” “Some say a bee’ll cross the ocean for a flower,” answered the old man with a smile. “Though I’ve never known one to do so.””

“So as the summer sun began to rise, the fire began to die, and the bees began to circle overhead, the two men spoke of days from their childhoods when the wagon wheels rattled in the road, and the dragonflies skimmed the grass, and the apple trees blossomed for as far as the eye could see.”

“The Nizhny Novgorod Province had a hundred prominent families, which over the course of two centuries had intermarried and divorced, borrowed and lent, accepted and regretted, offended, defended, and dueled—while championing an array of conflicting positions that varied by generation, gender, and house. And at the center of this maelstrom was the Countess Rostova’s dining room with its two tables for twenty standing side by side.”

“[…] the Count reviewed the menu in reverse order as was his habit, having learned from experience that giving consideration to appetizers before entrées can only lead to regrets. And here was a perfect example. For the very last item on the menu was the evening’s sole necessity: osso buco—a dish that was best preceded by a light and lively appetizer.”

“For years now, with a bit of a smile, the Count had remarked that this or that was behind him—like his days of poetry or travel or romance. But in so doing, he had never really believed it. In his heart of hearts, he had imagined that, even if unattended to, these aspects of his life were lingering somewhere on the periphery, waiting to be recalled. But looking at the bottle in his hand, the Count was struck by the realization that, in fact, it was all behind him. Because the Bolsheviks, who were so intent upon recasting the future from a mold of their own making, would not rest until every last vestige of his Russia had been uprooted, shattered, or erased.”

“The staffing trend that had begun with the appointment of the Bishop had continued unabated—such that any young man with more influence than experience could now don the white jacket, clear from the left, and pour wine into water glasses.”

“I have no doubt, mein Herr, that your remark regarding Russia’s contributions to the West was a form of inverted hyperbole—an exaggerated diminution of the facts for poetic effect.”

“Can you conceive of a work greater in scope than War and Peace? One that moves so deftly from the parlor to the battlefield and back again? That so fully investigates how the individual is shaped by history, and history by the individual?”

“the elixir dissolved on his tongue, the Count became aware of something else entirely. Rather than the flowering trees of central Moscow, the honey had a hint of a grassy riverbank . . . the trace of a summer breeze . . . a suggestion of a pergola. . . . But most of all, there was the unmistakable essence of a thousand apple trees in bloom. Abram was nodding his head.

““Nizhny Novgorod,” he said. And it was. Unmistakably so.

““All these years, they must have been listening to us,” Abram added in a whisper.

“The Count and the handyman both looked toward the roof’s edge where the bees, having traveled over a hundred miles and applied themselves in willing industry, now wheeled above their hives as pinpoints of blackness, like the inverse of stars.”

““Ah,” said Emile with the grim smile of the commander who prefers to be outnumbered.”

“at the very moment that he recognized his old friend’s script, a lady with a lapdog rose from his favorite chair between the potted palms. Ever respectful of Fate, the Count postponed his visit to the seamstress, claimed his seat, and opened the letter.”

“But art is the most unnatural minion of the state. Not only is it created by fanciful people who tire of repetition even more quickly than they tire of being told what to do, it is also vexingly ambiguous. Just when a carefully crafted bit of dialogue is about to deliver a crystal-clear message, a hint of sarcasm or the raising of an eyebrow can spoil the entire effect. In fact, it can give credence to a notion that is the exact opposite of that which was intended. So, perhaps it is understandable that governing authorities are bound to reconsider their artistic preferences every now and then, if for no other reason than to keep themselves fit.”

“For having fallen suddenly from grace, those in the Confederacy share a certain perspective. Knowing beauty, influence, fame, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed, they are not easily impressed. They are not quick to envy or take offense. They certainly do not scour the papers in search of their own names. They remain committed to living among their peers, but they greet adulation with caution, ambition with sympathy, and condescension with an inward smile.”

“Now that was the life of the Boyarsky—a battle that must be waged with exacting precision while giving the impression of effortlessness, every single night of the year.”

““You have me at a disadvantage.””

““The surest way to insult a Walloon is to mistake him for a Frenchman, though they live but a few miles apart and share the same language.””

“The Count took a sip of his wine and returned the glass to the table.

““You are almost certainly from eastern Georgia.”

“The captain sat up with an expression of enthusiasm.

““Extraordinary. Do I have an accent?” “Not that’s distinguishable. But then armies, like universities, are where accents are most commonly shed.”

““Then why eastern Georgia?”

“The Count gestured to the wine. “Only an eastern Georgian would start his meal with a bottle of Rkatsiteli.”

““Because he’s a hayseed?”

““Because he misses home.””

“Life has been generous to me in its variety.”

““As both a student of history and a man devoted to living in the present, I admit that I do not spend a lot of time imagining how things might otherwise have been. But I do like to think there is a difference between being resigned to a situation and reconciled to it.””

“With limited instruction, he had perfected the art of withholding his insights, forgoing his witticisms, curbing the use of metaphors, similes, and analogies—in essence, exercising every muscle of poetic restraint. In fact, if the reporters whom he was dutifully transcribing had only seen his handiwork, they would have taken off their hats, bowed their heads, and acknowledged that here was a master of objectivity.]”

““Ah. The man of letters has lost his pen. Where is it now . . . , hmm? If not in the kitchen, perhaps you should look in the blue pagoda of your fine Chinoiserie.” And turning with his smirk, the Bishop slipped diagonally down the hall.”

““What is a man supposed to do when confronted with such madness? I struck the passage out. Then I walked from the room without a word.””

“It could have been a tale from Gogol with Shalamov playing the part of a well-fed privy councillor impressed by his own rank. And the offending passage, hearing of its pending fate, could have climbed out a window and escaped down an alley never to be heard from again—that is, until it reappeared ten years later on the arm of a French countess, wearing a pince-nez and the Légion d’honneur.”

““The future of Russian poetry is the haiku!” Mishka shouted in conclusion, then, with great satisfaction, he slammed the door on his way out. In fact, so satisfying was this gesture that he slammed every door that stood between him and the street below.”

“Naturally, the Count had watched in recent years as age began to take its toll on the Triumvirate. He had noticed the occasional tremor in Andrey’s left hand and the creeping deafness in Emile’s right ear. He had noticed the graying of the former’s hair and the thinning of the latter’s. But with Mishka, here were not simply the ravages of time. Here were the marks of one man upon another, of an era upon its offspring.”

““Do you know that back in ’30, when they announced the mandatory collectivization of farming, half our peasants slaughtered their own livestock rather than give them up to the cooperatives? Fourteen million head of cattle left to the buzzards and flies.””

“do you think the achievements of the Americans—envied the world over—came without a cost? Just ask their African brothers. And do you think the engineers who designed their illustrious skyscrapers or built their highways hesitated for one moment to level the lovely little neighborhoods that stood in their way? I guarantee you, Alexander, they laid the dynamite and pushed the plungers themselves. As I’ve said to you before, we and the Americans will lead the rest of this century because we are the only nations who have learned to brush the past aside instead of bowing before it. But where they have done so in service of their beloved individualism, we are attempting to do so in service of the common good.””

“And where Nina would not hesitate to cut someone off in midassertion in order to make a contrary point and then declare the matter decided once and for all, Sofia would listen so attentively and with such a sympathetic smile that her interlocutor, having been given free rein to express his views at considerable length, often found his voice petering out as he began to question his own premises. . . .”

“One could spend a lifetime mastering the technical aspects of the piano and never achieve a state of musical expression—that alchemy by which the performer not only comprehends the sentiments of the composer, but somehow communicates them to her audience through the manner of her play.”

“Opening the narrow glass door in the clock’s cabinet, the Count reached inside and found the little key still on its hook. Inserting it into the keyhole, the Count wound the clock to its limit, set the time, and gave the pendulum a nudge, thinking: Let the old man keep time for a few hours more.”

“"But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.””

“But ever since the Count had become headwaiter of the Boyarsky, its customers could expect their server to look them in the eye, answer their questions, offer recommendations, and flawlessly record their preferences—without ever taking his hands from behind his back.”

“When the Count had quietly closed the door, he turned to Anna, whose expression was unusually grave. “When did the Minister of Culture start taking a personal interest in Sofia?” he asked. “Tomorrow afternoon,” she replied. “At the latest.””

““Someone has told you about my conversation with Director Vavilov.” The Count rearranged his fork and knife, which had somehow become misaligned. “I may have heard something from someone,” he said noncommittally.”

“Now it was luminescence that was moving across the city, growing closer and closer, until the windows of the Kremlin flashed on followed by the chandelier overhead—and the combined dinner of the Presidium and the Council of Ministers erupted into justified applause. For, in fact, the lights of the city seemed to burn brighter with the electricity from the first nuclear power plant in the world.”

“Given the tightness of security at the railway crossing into Finland, it is presumed that Rostov disembarked in Vyborg in order to cross the border on foot.”

““No, sir. There is nothing else. But how shall we proceed?” The Chief Administrator considered this question for a moment and then, leaning back in his chair with the barest hint of a smile, replied: “Round up the usual suspects.””

“But in setting upright the cocktail glass in the aftermath of the commotion, didn’t he also exhibit an essential faith that by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world?”

“And there in the corner, at a table for two, her hair tinged with gray, the willowy woman waited.”