Suffice it to say that the two shared a fondness for each other and despite their best intentions, life intervened.

the Count began turning through the pages, stopping here and there to read the passages his father had underlined.

What young lovers have not found themselves at this juncture in a silence so sudden, so seemingly insurmountable that it threatens to cast doubt upon their chemistry as a couple? What husband and wife have not found themselves suddenly unnerved by the fear that they might not ever have something urgent, impassioned, or surprising to say to each

Surely, the span of time between the placing of an order and the arrival of appetizers is one of the most perilous in all human interaction.

Perhaps it is inescapable that when our lives are in flux, despite the comfort of our beds, we are bound to keep ourselves awake grappling with anxieties—no matter how great or small, how real or imagined.

The minds of Americans, he says, are universally preoccupied with meeting the body’s every need and attending to life’s little comforts. And that was in 1840. Imagine if he had visited them in the 1920s!” “Ha. Visited them in the 1920s. Well put, my friend.”

what exactly? A Chardonnay to complement a Camembert? A Sauvignon Blanc to go with some chèvre? Whichever wine was within, it was decidedly not identical to its neighbors. On the contrary, the contents of the bottle in his hand was the product of a history as unique and complex as that of a nation, or a man. In its color, aroma, and taste, it would

There is not, I think, a single country in the civilized world where less attention is paid to philosophy than in the United States.

With Andrey a few paces behind him, the Count began walking the cellar’s center aisle, much as a commander and his lieutenant might walk through a field hospital in the aftermath of battle. Near the end of the aisle, the Count turned down one of the rows. With a quick accounting of columns and shelves, the Count determined that in this row alone,