About the Author 14 страница

Reaching for the gunwale, I tried to push myself up, but my fingers were so numb from the paddling that I lost my grip and fell forward again—whacking my broken nose on the bow.

With a howl, I reflexively scrambled to my feet as the freezing water continued to rush in around my ankles. With all of my weight in the front of the boat and the stern rising up behind me, painted stones rolled toward my feet, the bow took another dip, and I went head over heels into the lake.

Kicking at the depths with my feet and slapping at the surface with my arms, I tried to take a deep breath of air, but took a deep breath of water instead. Coughing and thrashing, I felt my head go under and my body begin to sink. Looking up through the dappled surface, I could see the shadows of the bills floating on the water like autumn leaves. Then the boat drifted over me, casting a much larger shadow, a shadow that began to extend outward in every direction.

But just when it seemed as if the entire lake would be subsumed in darkness, a great curtain was raised and I found myself standing on a crowded street in a busy metropolis, except that everyone around me was someone I knew, and all of them were frozen in place.

Sitting together on a nearby bench were Woolly and Billy, smiling at the floor plan of the house in California. And there was Sally leaning over a pram in order to tuck in the blanket of the child in her care. And there by the flower cart was Sister Sarah looking wistful and forlorn. And right there, not more than fifty feet away, standing by the door of his bright yellow car, was Emmett, looking honorable and upright.

—Emmett, I called.

But even as I did so, I could hear the distant chiming of a clock. Only it wasn’t a clock, and it wasn’t distant. It was the gold watch that had been tucked in the pocket of my vest and that now was suddenly in my hand. Looking down at its face, I couldn’t tell what time it was, but I knew that after another few chimes, the entire world would begin moving once again.

So taking off my crooked hat, I bowed to Sarah and Sally. I bowed to Woolly and Billy. I bowed to the one and only Emmett Watson.

And when the final chime sounded, I turned to them all in order to utter with my very last breath, The rest is silence, just as Hamlet had.

Or was that Iago?

I never could remember.

About the Author

Amor Towles is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Rules of Civility and A Gentleman in Moscow. The two novels have collectively sold more than four million copies and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Towles lives in Manhattan with his wife

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