The inconveniences that have mattered to me most

The inconveniences that have mattered to me most is Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s concise revaluation of privilege: the comforts he once took for granted prove less consequential than the inconveniences that have shaped his life. Spoken to Anna Urbanova, the thought turns an inventory of ease into a reflection on what endures.

The Exchange

Anna Urbanova has just remarked that, if she were a garage door, she would prefer to miss the old days. She lights another cigarette and hands it to the Count; he takes a drag while watching smoke rise toward the ceiling, where the Muses look down from the clouds. After a pause, he answers by distinguishing convenience from significance: “I’ll tell you what is convenient,” he says, recalling the ability to sleep until noon and have breakfast brought on a tray, cancel an appointment at the last minute, keep a carriage waiting outside one party for a sudden departure to another, and avoid marriage and children in youth. He says that he once possessed all these advantages, but that “in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most.”

Reversal of Value

The expression gains force from the contrast between the concrete ease of his examples and the unspecified inconveniences in his conclusion. Rostov does not identify those inconveniences here; instead, he shifts the measure of a life away from convenience itself. The privileges are easy to enumerate, but they are not what he regards as most important in retrospect. The line therefore offers a personal judgment without reducing the experiences behind it to a list.

Anna’s Response

Anna takes the cigarette from Rostov’s fingers, drops it into a water glass, and kisses him on the nose. Her small, affectionate gesture closes the exchange without answering his statement in words. The scene places the reflection inside an intimate encounter: the Count speaks of the difference between comfort and what matters, while Anna responds through touch and action.