A Gentleman in Moscow

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Book 4, Chapters 27-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 4, Chapter 27 Summary: “1950: Adagio, Andante, Allegro”

On June 21, 1950, the Count muses on Sofia, who is now 17. Sofia, whose dark hair now has a “white stripe that fell from the spot of her old injury” (322), has transformed from a mischievous child into a demure young woman. While Nina “was prone to express her impatience with the slightest of the world’s imperfections” (321), Sofia believes “that if the earth spun awry upon occasion, it was generally a well-intentioned planet” (321). Noting to Vasily how her youth has gone by “in the blink of an eye” (321), the Count reflects that in old age, “[w]hole seasons seem to pass without leaving the slightest mark on our memory” (322), while they make “the greatest of impressions upon our children” (322). This, he says, is the “celestial balance” (322).

The Count finds Sofia in the ballroom with Viktor Stepanovich, the conductor of the Piazza orchestra, and at first thinks he is seducing her. However, Viktor is merely giving her a piano lesson. The Count is shocked to discover that Sofia is a gifted piano player. When he tells her she plays with exceptional feeling, Sofia says she thinks of her mother as she plays and that she worries about forgetting her. The Count advises that those we love never leave our memories. He also tells Sofia that Nina used to love listening to the Assemblies from the balcony and performing experiments in the ballroom.

The Count meets a young man who is sketching a picture of the Piazza. The man says he is an architect and that, because of lack of work, he is drawing pictures for a tourist company’s brochure of Moscow’s hotels. On the man’s suggestion that the sketch will disguise “the condition of” (331) the Piazza, the Count explains that the Piazza’s “grandeur” (331) is defined by the diverse “citizenry” (331).

The Count has a drink with Richard Vanderwhile, who now works for the US State Department. The Count tells him that Viktor Stepanovich had heard Nina playing Mozart from the ballroom—she had taught herself by listening to the phonograph Richard had given the Count—and was so impressed he decided to tutor her. The Count considers how men must “make ends meet” (333): the young architect draws sketches of hotels, and Viktor conducts at the Piazza, even though he studied at the Conservatory.

The Count’s father once told him about the moths of Manchester, which, according to Darwin, evolved over the course of only a few decades from white with black specks to all black in order to blend in with the soot produced by the Industrial Revolution. The Count compares the moths to the men in his life.

Book 4, Chapter 28 Summary: “1952: America”

Sofia and the Count dine at the Boyarsky on the Count’s nights off. They look forward to playing a game they’ve invented called Zut, in which they think of foursomes of various categories. As they sit, they are approached by a literature professor who wishes to speak with the Count after dinner.

Sofia notes that Anna Urbanova is at another table, and the Count feigns disinterest. Anna, now in her fifties, has returned to the stage and spends months at a time in the hotel. Sofia informs him that Marina says he likes “to keep your buttons in their boxes” (343)—that is, that he prefers to keep his relationships separate. The Count is annoyed that Sofia, Marina, and Andrey know about his relationship with Anna and talk to each other about him. On his way to the professor’s suite—which happens to be his old suite—he sees Anna and expresses anger at what he sees as her indiscretion.

In his old suite, he notes that his old family clock is still there, but has stopped, and that the drapes and couches are showing age. He is surprised when Richard Vanderwhile is there: Richard says the professor is a friend of his and that he is borrowing his suite to talk to the Count in private. Richard says that with Stalin’s impending death, the Americans are unsure what will happen, since “[d]epending on who ends up in charge, the doors of the city could either be flung open the world, or slammed shut and bolted from the inside” (347). He says he is going to Paris for “the intelligence field” (347) and that they will be looking “for some friends here and there who might be in a position now and then to shed some light on this or that” (347). The Count politely declines to do so, and the two then talk as friends. On his way out, the Count winds the clock.

In March 1953, Stalin dies. The position of Premier of the Party is appointed to nuclear arms critic Malenkov; chairmanship of the Secretariat is appointed to “the conservative Khrushchev” (350). Thus, as Richard feared, there now exists “a duumvirate of antagonists” (350).

Meanwhile, in Anna’s room, after his meeting with Richard, the Count suggests that to accept the closing of the door to the world is “contrary to the human spirit” (350). Anna suggests that the Count does not “want to accept the notion that Russia may be inherently inward looking” (351) and that no one is “[w]ondering if the gates of New York are about to be opened or closed” (351). She says “[e]veryone dreams of living in America” (351) because of its “conveniences” (351), such as washing machines and garage door openers. The Count says that “it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most” (352).

Book 4, Chapter 29 Summary: “1953: Apostles and Apostates”

The Count waits impatiently in his study with a bottle of champagne. As he waits, he remembers how that afternoon, the assistant manager of the Boyarsky had told the waiters they were using a complex new order-taking system that took so long the customers’ food grew cold. When the Count complained to Manager Leplevsky—the Bishop—he was aghast at the Bishop’s suggestion that the goal is to prevent thievery. When the Count lets slip that he, Andrey, and Emile have daily meetings, the Bishop’s interest is piqued.

Anna and Sofia burst into the study, and Anna informs the Count that Sofia won her school’s music competition. As they celebrate with champagne, they are joined by Andrey and Emile.

The Bishop arrives with a stranger—Mr. Frinovsky—who informs the Count that Sofia has been ordered to take the position of second piano in the Red October Youth Orchestra in Stalingrad. Anna emerges from the Count’s study and invents a story suggesting comrade Nachevko—the round-faced man who is now Minister of Culture—wishes for Sofia to stay in Moscow.

A middle-aged woman emerges in the hallway. The Count sends the others downstairs and talks to the woman, who introduces herself as Katerina, Mishka’s former lover. She informs him that after her husband passed away, she and Mishka lived together in Yavas and that Mishka died the week before.

The two speak of Mishka’s devotion and talent. The Count reveals that Mishka, in fact, wrote Where Is It Now? and that, after “the revolt of 1905 and the repressions that followed” (368), it was decided that Mishka’s poem would be published under the Count’s name, for “[g]iven Mishka’s background” (369), they knew he would have been in trouble with the Okhrana, or the Tsar’s secret police. The Count notes the irony in the fact that the poem actually saved his life, not Mishka’s. Katerina hands him a package from Mishka. The Count asks her where she is going; she says, “Does it matter?” (370).

After she leaves, the Count unwraps the package, which contains the book that was Mishka’s secret project. It also contains a photo of Mishka and the Count taken in 1912. The book is a collection of thousands of years’ worth of literary references to bread, which he has quoted with BREAD emphasized in capital letters.

The Count weeps for Mishka, “who only briefly found his moment in time” (374). He notices that the final quotation in the book is the very quotation he had been required to remove from Chekhov’s letters, and he considers the irony of the fact that “surely, by now, the Russian people knew better than anyone in Europe how good a piece of bread could be” (374).

The Count then thinks of Katerina, and how this woman who had been so vibrant and talented could now answer the question of where she is going with, Does it matter?

Book 4, Chapters 27-29 Analysis

Book 4 is about changes, both in individuals and in Russia. Sofia grows from a mischievous girl to a studious and level-headed young woman. Anna Urbanova embraces her middle age as she renews a career on the stage. Richard Vanderwhile is bound for Paris, unsure when he’ll return to Moscow. Mishka’s death is the end of an era for the Count, who not only will miss his friend, but who feels the loss of “the last of those who had known him as a younger man” (374). The Count himself feels the passage of time, remarking to Vasily that “[w]hole seasons seem to pass without leaving the slightest mark on our memory” (322). The experiences of the young, he states, are “richer than ours” (322), and it is now the job of his generation to ensure “that they taste freely of experience” (322).

Central to these chapters is the story of the moths of Manchester which, according to the Count’s father, evolved over mere decades to blend in with the soot produced by the Industrial Revolution. Considering that nature, through evolution, “ensure[s] that moths and men have a chance to adapt” (336), the Count considers how the sketch artist in the Piazza, who draws for travel brochures so he can pay his bills, and Viktor Stepanovich, who tutors Sofia “in what little time he has to spare” (336), evolve in order to survive. The Count himself, with his commitment to master his circumstances, is a moth of Manchester, adjusting to a life of captivity in the hotel and to the Bolshevik reign. He takes on a job at the Boyarsky, remains open to new kinds of music playing in the Shalyapin, and even welcomes a daughter into his regimented life. The Count’s flexibility is encapsulated in his statement to Anna that “in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me most” (352). Though welcoming change can be difficult, it can bring the most wonderful experiences, such as opening one’s heart, and one’s life, to a daughter.

In Book 3, the Count had grappled with Mishka’s statement that Russia “has proven unusually adept at destroying that which [it] created” (290) and Osip’s view that Russian progress must come “[a]t the greatest cost” (297). Book 4 has the Count continuing to struggle to define his country while being simultaneously hesitant to admit its weaknesses, along with being uneasy with its history. In “1952: America,” Richard indicates that Moscow has two potential paths when Stalin dies: “Depending on who ends up in charge, the doors of the city could either be flung open to the world, or slammed shut and bolted from the inside” (347). The Count is optimistic, telling Anna that closing the door is “contrary to the human spirit” (350) and that Russia’s embracing of the world is evident in Emile’s cooking foreign dishes and Sofia’s playing music by foreign composers. However, the death of Mishka suggests Anna’s insistence that “Russia may be inherently inward looking” (351) is more accurate. Mishka is cast out for speaking against censorship, becoming part of the human cost of progress. When the Count weeps at the loss of “the last of those who had known him as a younger man” (374), he is also, on a deeper level, weeping for the loss of the Russia he knew as a younger man.

On learning of Mishka’s death, the Count considers the “the irony” of the lines Mishka had been asked to censor: though the Bolsheviks object to Chekhov’s suggestion that Russians “don’t know how good bread can be,” the starving Russians are perfectly aware of the value of bread. In their repression of ideas and their evident callousness to the people’s suffering, the Bolsheviks ultimately become that which they fought against. Readers may recall the Count’s pondering how “the fate of iron ore” (90) is to transform from bells to weapons and back again. Russia seems stuck in its own inward cycle, in which thoughts are controlled and power is equally exploited no matter who wields it. In the final paragraph of Book 4, the Count asks Katerina where she will go, to which she scoffs, “Does it matter?” (370). The Count’s contrasting Katerina’s talent and former vivaciousness with her minimizing her own existence leaves us pondering how individuals are damaged as the gears of history turn.