A Gentleman in Moscow

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A melody in the semblance of a mountain cat.

Well, where is our purpose now?

Like so many questions

I answer this one

With the eye-averted peeling of a pear.

With a bow I bid goodnight

And pass through terrace doors

Into the simple splendors

Of another temperate spring;

But this much I know:

It is not lost among the autumn leaves on Peter’s Square.

It is not among the ashes in the Athenaeum ash cans.

It is not inside the blue pagodas of your fine Chinoiserie.

It is not in Vronsky’s saddlebags;

Not in Sonnet XXX, stanza one;

Not on twenty-seven red . . .

Where Is It Now? (Lines 1–19)

Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov

1913

21 June 1922

APPEARANCE OF COUNT ALEXANDER ILYICH ROSTOV

BEFORE THE EMERGENCY COMMITTEE OF THE PEOPLE’S COMMISSARIAT FOR INTERNAL AFFAIRS

Presiding: Comrades V. A. Ignatov, M. S. Zakovsky, A. N. Kosarev

Prosecuting: A. Y. Vyshinsky

Prosecutor Vyshinsky: State your name.

Rostov: Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt.