A Gentleman in Moscow

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Book 3, Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 3, Chapter 14 Summary: “1930”

One morning in 1930, his eighth year of house arrest, the Count wakes up and makes himself some coffee with a new “Apparatus” (171). After enjoying his breakfast of coffee, buttered biscuit, and apple, he throws the crumbs out the window for the bird that frequently visits. He is preparing to leave a dish of cream outside his door for the cat when he sees a hotel envelope bearing the words, “Four o’clock?” He opens the envelope, uttering, “Mon Dieu” (172).

Book 3, Chapter 15 Summary: “Arachne’s Art”

Just as the shards in a kaleidoscope change with the wrist’s movement, so Moscow and the Metropol take on “a new configuration” (174). It is the last day of spring, and the Count is now headwaiter at the Boyarsky. He, Andrey, and Emile—“that Triumvirate which met each day at 2:15” (176), to discuss the upcoming evening—look over the list of reservations, and the Count offers suggestions on who should be seated where and which wines to offer with the specials. (Labeled wine is once again allowed.) The Count shows them the contents of the envelope: an ounce and a half of saffron. Andrey and Emile are stunned; Andrey says he believes he can obtain three oranges they will need.

In the lobby, the Count is given a letter from Mishka, who describes a somber walk he took that mirrors the walk during which Katerina first took his hand. The Count reflects on how Katerina left him a year ago; Mishka has moved back to St. Petersburg from Kiev.

He overhears three young people discussing an upcoming trip to the Ivanovo Province. One of them is dressed in the garb of a Komsomol, a member of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League. When one of the young women does not thank a friend who brings her jacket, the Count realizes she is Nina. He greets her excitedly, though her enthusiasm does not match his own; the Count senses she is embarrassed “about her acquaintance with a Former Person” (185). She walks over to speak with him about how they are going “to aid the udarniks, or ‘shock workers,’ in the collectivization of the region” (186) during which land was taken from kulaks, or affluent peasants, and turned into collective land.

After Nina leaves, the Count takes his white Boyarsky jacket to Marina so he can obtain thread to fix a loose button: after beginning work at the Boyarsky, the Count had enlisted her help in learning to sew and had found it much more complex than he’d imagined. He tells her he has seen Nina and that he is worried that her seriousness “will interfere with the joys of her youth” (189). Marina tells him that “life will find her in time” (189).

At 4:05 p.m., the Count realizes he’s late. He rushes up the stairs to a suite where Anna Urbanova is waiting for him in her bedroom.

Book 3, Chapter 16 Summary: “An Afternoon Assignation”

In 1919, Anna was discovered by director Ivan Rosotsky. She shot to stardom and “was given the mansion of a former fur merchant furnished with gilded chairs, painted armoires, and a Louis Quatorze dresser” (192)—the Bolsheviks justified the use of ornate, luxurious furniture by placing plates on the bottom that designated them property of the people. However, as artistic tastes changed, the popularity of Rosotsky’s films diminished because General Secretary Stalin appeared unamused. People now found the films too focused on “the era of princes and princesses” (193) and on “the trials and triumphs of the individual” (193), while lacking in “historical immediacy” (193). When “the talking picture” (194) gained popularity, people did not care for Anna’s husky voice. In 1928, at age 29, Anna became “a has-been” (194) and took a one-room apartment.

The second time she and the Count saw each other was in 1928, when she and a rude date dined in the Boyarsky. Later, after leaving the Shalyapin, the man declined her offer to go up to her room; Anna, noticing the Count watching her, expressed her humiliation. The Count made a joke that brought a smile to her face, and she invited him to her room.

The Count gathered that Anna, like he himself, had, in her newly-unfortunate circumstances, “join[ed] the Confederacy of the Humbled” (196). For the next year and a half, Anna frequently met directors at the Boyarsky but took steps to prevent being humiliated. After, she would return to her room, where the Count would join her.

Anna came back into favor when, in a small role in a movie about factory workers, she gave an “impassioned speech in favor of pushing on” (198). Her voice now appealed to people because it was “that of a woman who has breathed the dust of unpaved roads” (198) and “who has screamed during childbirth” (198). The round-faced man she’d been dining with at the Shalyapin in 1923 now works in the Ministry of Culture; he spoke of her to directors, and she experienced a “resurgence” (199).

Lying in bed, the Count takes stock of Anna’s freckles. She reveals to him that she is actually not from a fishing village and only told him she was because she thought it would please him. The two tell each other stories and engage in intimate conversation.

Book 3, Chapters 14-16 Analysis

The early chapters of Book 3 establish how, by 1930, the shards of the kaleidoscope have “tumble[d] into a new arrangement” (176). Up to this point, readers have been offered glimpses of how Russia, and the lives of those who live there, has been changed by the Bolsheviks. In these chapters, we see how the Count, after having wrestled with reconciling the past and the present, has adjusted to the new times just as turning a kaleidoscope creates “a new configuration” (174). These chapters also show that those who adjust to the times still remain, as always, essentially themselves.

The passage of time is indicated from the first when the Count makes his own coffee with an “Apparatus” in his room. “Comrade” is now “the most commonly heard word in the Russian language” (181). The Count is now a waiter at the Boyarsky; he even sews the buttons and repairs the frayed hems on his white Boyarsky jacket.

However, just as the Count values his study because a secret room, “regardless of its dimensions, seem[s] as vast as one cares to imagine” (64), small, hidden acts of resistance help sustain the Count and others. He, Emile, and Andrey, “three conspirators” (180), take pleasure in sneaking contraband ingredients into dishes at the Boyarsky. These small acts make the changing times more bearable, and the Count tends to his tasks with his usual positivity and cheerfulness, leaving his meeting with Emile and Andrey with “a smile on his lips and a jauntiness to his step” (180).

Indeed, his work at the Boyarsky enables him to once again use his skills in table seating, maneuvering parties to avoid confrontation between patrons. Similarly, Emile and Andrey ask for his advice on which wines should be recommended with the evening’s specials, offering the Count the opportunity to demonstrate his taste and knowledge. Even in his learning to sew, he shows himself to be the same Count Rostov: he becomes, as he is in all things, proficient in his task, and it is with casual ease that he threads his needle and chooses between subtle shades of white. The Count’s innate perception and taste are evident even as he embarks on endeavors in this new world.

Just as the Count’s new circumstances offer opportunities for him to utilize talents acquired as a nobleman, so Anna Urbanova adapts to changing times while staying true to herself. Having experienced a fall in popularity due to her age and to changing tastes, Anna has joined the Count in the “Confederacy of the Humbled,” in which those who have “fallen suddenly from grace” (196) understand that “beauty, influence, fame, and privilege” (196) are “borrowed rather than bestowed” (196). However, Anna, like the Count, does not succumb to this setback but rather adjusts. In fact, her transformation enables her to be more herself: her husky voice, once a liability, appeals to new audiences, who yearn to hear “the voice of my sister, my wife, my mother, my friend” (198). Anna demonstrates her willingness to adjust even in her approach to acquiring roles: when a director declines her offer to join her in her room, she decides she will now leave directors in the lobby to make them wonder “if she might not be perfect for that little role in the second act” (197). Both the Count and Anna recognize that in order to survive, they must bend with the changes.

If the Count and Anna have become more flexible, Nina appears to have become even stauncher in her beliefs. Still “a serious soul in search of serious ideas to be serious about” (186), Nina, as she’d expressed a desire to do years ago, is about to literally broaden her horizons on her trip to the Ivanovo Province. Nina’s speech to the Count about collectivization of “the common land to serve the common good” (186) suggests her idealism about the Bolshevik cause. Though Marina assures the Count that “life will find her in time” (189) despite her being “single-minded to a fault” (189), the Count expresses almost fatherly concern that “the force of her convictions will interfere with the joys of her youth” (189).

These chapters reinforce the sternness of life under Bolshevik rule. Though labeled wines are allowed once again, movies involving “waltzing and candlelight and marble stairs” (193), presenting “the trials and triumphs of the individual” (193) and failing to depict “the collective struggle” (193), have been moved aside for those with more “historical immediacy” (193). These losses are made harder to bear by the Bolsheviks’ hypocrisy: they enjoy luxurious furniture as long as it technically belongs in “the vast inventory of the People” (192).