Free A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

lair of the Minotaur. Through those caverns where ghostly shadows dwell, Odysseus had his Tiresias just as Dante had his Virgil. And in the Metropol Hotel, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov had a nine-year-old girl by the name of Nina Kulikova.
    For on the first Wednesday in July, as the Count sat in the lobby at a loss of what to do with himself, he happened to notice Nina zipping past with an unusually determined expression.
    â€œHello, my friend. Where are you headed?”
    Turning about like one who’s been caught in the act, Nina composed herself, then answered with a wave of the hand:
    â€œAround and about . . .”
    The Count raised his eyebrows.
    â€œAnd where is that exactly?”
    . . .
    â€œAt this moment, the card room.”
    â€œAh. So you like to play at cards.”
    â€œNot really . . .”
    â€œThen why on earth are you going there?”
    . . .
    â€œOh, come now,” the Count protested. “Surely, there are not going to be secrets between
us
!”
    Nina weighed the Count’s remark, then looking once to her left and once to her right, she confided. She explained that while the card room was rarely used, at three o’clock on Wednesdays four women met there without fail for a regular game of whist; and if you arrived by two thirty and hid in the cupboard, you could hear their every word—which included a good deal of cursing; and when the ladies left, you could eat the rest of their cookies.
    The Count sat upright.
    â€œWhere else do you spend your time?”
    Again she weighed the Count’s remark, looked left and looked right.
    â€œMeet me here,” she said, “tomorrow at two.”
    And thus began the Count’s education.

    Having lived at the Metropol for four years, the Count considered himself something of an expert on the hotel. He knew its staff by name, its services by experience, and the decorative styles of its suites by heart. But once Nina had taken him in hand, he realized what a novice he had been.
    In the ten months that Nina had lived at the Metropol, she had been confronted with her own version of confinement. For, as her father had been posted only “temporarily” to Moscow, he had not bothered to enroll her in school. And as Nina’s governess still had one foot set firmly in the hinterlands, she preferred that her charge remain on the hotel’s premises where she was less likely to be corrupted by street lamps and trolley cars. So, if the door of the Metropol was known the world over for spinning without stop, it spun not for Nina. But, an enterprising and tireless spirit, the young lady had made the most of her situation by personally investigating the hotel until she knew every room, its purpose, and how it might be put to better use.
    Yes, the Count had gone to the little window at the back of the lobby to ask for his mail, but had he been to the sorting room where the incoming envelopes were spilled on a table at ten and at two—including those that were stamped in red with the unambiguous instruction
For Immediate Delivery
?
    And yes, he had visited Fatima’s in the days when it was open, but had he been inside the cutting room? Through a narrow door at the back of her shop was that niche with a light green counter where stems had been snipped and roses dethorned, where even now one could find scattered across the floor the dried petals of ten perennials essential to the making of potions.
    Of course,
exclaimed the Count to himself. Within the Metropol there were rooms behind rooms and doors behind doors. The linen closets. The laundries. The pantries. The switchboard!
    It was like sailing on a steamship. Having enjoyed an afternoon shooting clay pigeons off the starboard bow, a passenger dresses for dinner,dines at the captain’s table, outplays the cocky French fellow at baccarat, and then strolls under the stars on the arm of a new acquaintance—all the while congratulating