A Gentleman in Moscow

“For eventually, we come to hold our dearest possessions more closely than we hold our friends.” 

The Count muses on the sentimental value of possessions as he looks around his suite to decide which items to bring with him to his new room. He thinks about how we allow “memories to invest them with greater and greater importance” (14); they come to represent to us the experiences that surrounded them. The Count takes several items of sentimental importance with him. When he looks at these items, he is reminded of the past. The Count often struggles with reconciling the past with the present; he must determine the role of his own past in the new Bolshevik regime. The closeness he feels to these sentimental items shows that the Count in some ways remains tethered to the past, both of the Country and of his family. The Count’s attachment to possessions also shows how he is at odds with the Bolsheviks.

“Thus did the typewriters clack through the night, until that historic document had been crafted which guaranteed for all Russians freedom of conscience (Article 13), freedom of expression (Article 14), freedom of assembly (Article 15), and freedom to have any of these rights revoked should they be ‘utilized to the detriment of the socialist revolution’ (Article 23)!”

This quotation refers to the “constitutional drafting committee” (15) that works on the second floor of the Metropol. It describes tenets of the Russian Constitution of 1918 in which rights were granted to the people as long as the exercising of these rights did not contradict the Party. The passage shows the importance of Party loyalty and foreshadows the punishments of those who go against the Party. In doing so, it suggests that power and obedience are more important to Party leaders than are the actual tenets of the Party. The novel will offer many examples of hypocrisy within the Party.

“[I]f a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”

The first night in his new room, after his friends leave, the Count thinks about how, upon the death of his parents, the Grand Duke told him he had to be strong for his sister and that “if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them” (18). This becomes the Count’s philosophy during his decades of house arrest. The Count requests some of his favorite items to be delivered to his room. He also learns from Nina to expand the walls of the Metropol by exploring the secret rooms and inner workings. He creates his own secret study, feeling that “a room that exists in secret can, regardless of its dimensions, seem as vast as one cares to imagine” (64). The Count also adjusts to changing times by shaving his mustaches and by ultimately working in the Boyarsky. The Count survives by making the most of his circumstances, believing every year that passes in captivity is a year that “has been endured; survived; bested” (110). His flexibility—and his ability to learn from those around him—is what sustains and ultimately frees him.

“In fact, it spins on its axis even as it revolves around the sun. And the galaxy turns as well, a wheel within a greater wheel, producing a chime of an entirely different nature than that of a tiny hammer in a clock. And when that celestial chime sounds, perhaps a mirror will suddenly serve its truer purpose—revealing to a man not who he imagines himself to be, but who he has become.”

In the barbershop, a man cuts off the Count’s mustache when the barber takes the Count, who has a weekly appointment, before him. After the man leaves, telling the Count he will have his appointment “soon enough” (36), the barber, referencing the Count’s ruined mustache, asks, “But what are we to do?” (36). In this quotation, the Count looks in the mirror and “survey[s] himself, perhaps, for the first time in years” (36). He thinks about how the wheels of time change and how he, too, must change. In response to the barber’s question, the Count answers, “A clean shave, my friend” (37), indicating his acceptance of the need for change. Similarly, in response to Mr. Halecki’s informing him that his staff will no longer call him “Your Excellency,” the Count replies, “It is the business of the times to change, Mr. Halecki. And it is the business of gentlemen to change with them” (75). Despite the nostalgia he feels for a time when the use of titles “was a reliable indication that one was in a civilized country” (75), the Count asserts “[i]t is probably for the best” (75).

“Does an orchestra need a bassoon?”

In the basement, Nina and the Count come across a room in which the silver service and other fine items are stored. Nina picks up an asparagus server with “a delicate spade with a plunger and an ivory handle” (58). When the Count tells her what it is, she asks, “Does a banquet really need an asparagus server?” (58), to which the Count replies, “Does an orchestra need a bassoon?” (58). The Count seems to acknowledge the extravagance of this contraption while defending its use. Perhaps neither is necessary; however, it is the fine details that make an experience elegant and enjoyable. It is an idea he espouses frequently in the novel, from his extensive knowledge of wine to his careful attention to detail in the tables of the Boyarsky. This quotation demonstrates that, despite his ability to absorb change, he is a nobleman at heart.

“The soldiers of the common man may toss the banners of the old regime on the victory pyre, but soon enough trumpets will blare and pomp will take its place at the side of the throne, having once again secured its dominion over history and kings.”

The Count realizes that the Bolsheviks have not sent away the Metropol’s silver because, “[f]or however decisive the Bolsheviks’ victory had been over the privileged classes on behalf of the Proletariat, they would be having banquets soon enough” (59). He imagines that their preparation for their own celebration will not look much different than that of the balls he once attended. In this quotation, he thinks about how people shun pomp “as the emperor is dragged down the steps” (59) but that eventually, as it gains more and more power, one regime begins to look just like the next. A Gentleman in Moscow contains many examples of how the Bolsheviks are as oppressive as the nobility they have overthrown. This concept is reinforced later, when the Count watches an Assembly with Nina and considers how similar the ballroom looks to the time before the Bolsheviks took over. He sees younger Bolsheviks revering an older officer and how people scurry about introducing themselves or avoiding conversations, just as they did in his own time. He wonders if “the patch on the elbow [is] really that much different from the epaulette on the shoulder” (67).

“But events can unfold in such a manner that overnight a man out of step finds himself in the right place at the right time.”

When Mishka visits the Count in his room, he tells the Count about the goings-on in the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. Mishka describes how, in this age of new advancements, poetry “is keeping pace” (86). It has evolved from “quatrains and dactyls and elaborate tropes” (86) and is now “an art of action” (86). The Count, though skeptical of Mishka’s comments on poetry, is delighted that his dear friend feels a sense of belonging in these new times. He ponders how a man who is “profoundly out of step with his times” (86) can feel “in a state of confusion” (86) and how “romance or professional success” (86) can allude him. Mishka is “like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas” (87) who “wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead” (87). However, Mishka will later find himself out of step with the times once more as he becomes a victim of the Bolsheviks’ persecution. The transitory nature of Mishka’s being in or out of step shows how quickly times change and how extreme the Bolsheviks’ ideals are.

“From bells to cannons and back again, from now until the end of time. Such is the fate of iron ore.”

The Count reflects on how, on Christmas Eve, he and his sister Helena used to drive their troika around to visit neighbors. At a bend in the road, at midnight, they would listen to the sounds of church bells emanating from churches across the town. He recalls how, upon returning from Paris, he witnessed Cossacks dropping the bells from the bell towers and killing an abbot who objected. He wondered if the bells had “been reclaimed by the Bolsheviks for the manufacture of artillery, thus returning them to the realm from whence they came” (90). The Count frequently considers how history works in cycles, and that even the Bolsheviks, who profess to shun luxury, find ways to include luxury and pomp into their lifestyles. In “An Appointment,” as he thinks about the lack of flowers in the Metropol since Fatima’s florist shop has closed, he considers that “the flower shops of Paris shuttered under the ‘reign’ of Robespierre” (33) and that “that city now abound[s] in blossoms” (33). This quotation suggests that actions are erased by the next regime to come into power. The concept is both reassuring and somber, for while one perhaps may never wait too long to be in step with the times, accomplishments may disappear almost as quickly as they are enacted.

“Rather than sitting in orderly rows in a schoolhouse, wouldn’t one be better served by working her way toward an actual horizon, so that she could see what lay beyond it?”

Nina tells the Count she does not want to go to school. The Count replies that it will broaden her horizons, to which Nina replies that travel would be more educational than sitting in a classroom, for one could see an actual horizon. Her statement is reminiscent of her desire to explore the hotel, for she “had not contented herself with the views from the upper decks. She had gone below. Behind. Around. About” (57). Later, Nina will demonstrate her commitment to experience by traveling to the Ivanovo Province, where she will take action for a political cause she believes in. The Count will also encourage Sofia to go to Paris to play piano, telling her his proudest moments are when she steps out of the hotel, and helps her escape to America. He thus ensures that Nina’s daughter sees her own horizons.

“But then, the measure of fifteen minutes is entirely different for a man on step than for a man with nothing to do.”

In the early years of his house arrest, the Count frequently feels bored or depressed. He also watches as others live their lives outside the hotel without him. Though time goes on in the outside world, for him, it essentially stands still. As the Count waits for Mishka to visit, he reads a newspaper he realizes he already read the day before. Mishka is fifteen minutes late, and the Count reflects how time passes slowly for someone like him, who has nothing to do, whereas for Mishka, who has begun editing Russian literature and has continued his romance with Katerina, fifteen minutes pass more quickly. Mishka’s arriving late, leaving early, and canceling plans causes sadness in the Count, whom not only misses his friend but is forced to face life’s moving on without him. He feels anonymous and unimportant and will ultimately attempt to take his own life.

“Yes, a bottle of wine was the ultimate distillation of time and place; a poetic expression of individuality itself. Yet here it was, cast back into the sea of anonymity, that realm of averages and unknowns.”

The removal of the labels from the bottles in the Boyarsky’s wine cellar represents the ideals of the Bolsheviks, whom favor the good of the collective whole over that of the individual. The labels have been removed because the wine list is “a monument to the privilege of the nobility” (142), for only some can afford the expensive vintages. The Count ponders that each wine is “decidedly not identical to its neighbors” (143), how the wine’s “color, aroma, and taste” (143) depends on the “idiosyncratic geology and prevailing climate of its home terrain” (143). The quality of each vintage is dependent on “the timing of that winter’s thaw, the extent of that summer’s rain, the prevailing winds, and the frequency of clouds” (144). That the wines’ individualities are being sacrificed, with each wine being “cast back into the sea of anonymity,” is a metaphor for the Bolsheviks’ actions toward people. It is eerily similar to the Bolsheviks’ attempt to eliminate “names and family ties” (288) as well as “professions and possessions” (288) of prisoners of the gulag, until they “became indistinguishable from each other” (288). The Count laments that the Bolsheviks “would not rest until every last vestige of his Russia had been uprooted, shattered, or erased” (144).

“If such a slight change in temperature was all it took to transform the life of a public square, why should we think the course of human history any less susceptible?”

When Book 3 begins, the year is 1930, four years after the Count’s attempted suicide, which had been thwarted by the arrival of Abram’s bees and by his tasting the apples of Novgorod Nizhny in their honey. Though he had felt unable to cope with the dismantling of the Russia he knew, he had been comforted by the realization that one’s past does not disappear from one’s future but rather takes a new form. Now, in Book 3, he himself has taken a new form—understanding that one must adjust with the times, he has become a waiter in the Boyarsky. The narrator notes that, while “[h]istory is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair” (173), changes often occur not after momentous events but “like the turn of a kaleidoscope” (174), in that a small motion reconfigures the environment. This idea—that changes occur after a series of minor, seemingly insignificant adjustments—is true “in the city of Moscow in the late 1920s” and also “at the Metropol Hotel” (174). Russia has gradually changed under the Bolsheviks, and the Count has learned to change with it. However, just as a new configuration of the kaleidoscope is but a slightly different rearrangement, so too is the Count merely a more modern version of himself.

“Then by the slightest turn of the wrist, the shards begin to shift and settle into a new configuration—a configuration with its own symmetry of shapes, its own intricacy of colors, its own hints of design.” 

When Book 3 begins, the year is 1930, four years after the Count’s attempted suicide, which had been thwarted by the arrival of Abram’s bees and by his tasting the apples of Novgorod Nizhny in their honey. Though he had felt unable to cope with the dismantling of the Russia he knew, he had been comforted by the realization that one’s past does not disappear from one’s future but rather takes a new form. Now, in Book 3, he himself has taken a new form—understanding that one must adjust with the times, he has become a waiter in the Boyarsky. The narrator notes that, while “[h]istory is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair” (173), changes often occur not after momentous events but “like the turn of a kaleidoscope” (174), in that a small motion reconfigures the environment. This idea—that changes occur after a series of minor, seemingly insignificant adjustments—is true “in the city of Moscow in the late 1920s” and also “at the Metropol Hotel” (174). Russia has gradually changed under the Bolsheviks, and the Count has learned to change with it. However, just as a new configuration of the kaleidoscope is but a slightly different rearrangement, so too is the Count merely a more modern version of himself.

“Like the Freemasons, the Confederacy of the Humbled is a close-knit brotherhood whose members travel with no outward markings, but who know each other at a glance.”

When Anna and the Count are reunited, Anna has become, like the Count, a member of the Confederacy of the Humbled. She fell from popularity when tastes shifted toward movies with “historical immediacy” (193), only to find herself in a one-room apartment lacking the luxury she had known before. Her attempts to convince directors to hire her end in rejection and humiliation. These experiences lead her to take precautions to ensure she is not humiliated again. She and the Count relate to each other because they have each experienced “a profound setback in the course of an enviable life” (196). They have each “fallen suddenly from grace” (196) and “share a certain perspective” (196). They now understand “beauty, influence, are, and privilege to be borrowed rather than bestowed” (196) and therefore live more warily than before.

“There are statues to be moved! Lines to be elided! At five o’clock, you mustn’t be late for your bath with comrade Stalin. For if you are, who will be there to scrub his back?” 

Mishka bursts into his editor’s conference ranting about censorship in literature. When his editor says he is trying to conduct business, Mishka responds that “business” must refer to acts of obsequiousness to Stalin. His comments result in his being arrested and sent to Siberia until he is eventually freed with a Minus Six. Mishka, who once had been an adamant member of the Party, is one of many who become disillusioned with the Party once he observes its extreme measures. Just as Nina’s “faith in the Party” (227) will be tested when she sees the peasants who are starving under Bolshevik rule, Mishka becomes disheartened by the silencing of poets. This quotation suggests that ultimately, the Bolshevik Party becomes more about allegiance to an individual or to power than it is about helping the workers and the poor.

“For as a people, we Russians have proven unusually adept at destroying that which we have created.”

Mishka theorizes that Russians “turn the gun on ourselves […] because [they] believe […] in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person” (291). As evidence, he references the fact that in 1930, after the announcement of mandatory farm collectivization, “half our peasants slaughtered their own livestock rather than give them up to the cooperatives” (290). He also mentions the burning of Moscow in 1812, when Napoleon “was roused at two in the morning and stepped from his brand-new bedroom in the Kremlin only to find that the city he’d claimed just hours before had been set on fire by its citizens” (289). Mishka calls this strategy “our greatest strength” (291). Later, when the Count is worrying over Richard’s comment that, once Stalin dies, Russia will either open or close the door to the world, Anna offers that “[a]t the center of all that is Russia—of its culture, its psychology, and perhaps its destiny—stands the Kremlin, a walled fortress a thousand years old and four hundred miles from sea” (351). A Gentleman in Moscow is in part about Russia’s struggle to find its place as a world power, and how its instincts to turn inward affect its presence on the world stage.

“But do you think the achievements of the Americans—envied the world over—came without a cost?”

After speaking with Mishka, the Count, feeling thoughtful, asks Osip whether he believes “Russians are particularly brutish” (295). Osip reminds the Count of a time when Russia was “the most illiterate nation in Europe, with the majority of its population living in modified serfdom” (297). He asks, “But where do we stand now? How far have we come?” (297). In response to Osip’s comments about the progress of Russia, the Count asks, “But at what cost?” (297). Osip concedes that it comes “[a]t the greatest cost” (297) but that no progress comes without cost. As this conversation takes place shortly after the Count’s conversation with Mishka, readers cannot help but view Mishka, and others like him, as the human cost of this progress. Osip espouses a belief that Russia must move toward its place on the world stage without mercy. He is in his sense both an idealist and a pragmatist, sincerely believing that it is “in the service of the common good” (298).

“And so systematic was their realization, you could mistakenly enter any apartment on your block and feel immediately at home.”

In a footnote, readers are told that architects in Moscow created “prefabricated, cement-walled, five-story apartment buildings[s]” (330) that “could be built from a single page of specifications” (330). They were so similar that one would not immediately realize if one walked into the wrong apartment. This lack of individuality and emphasis on equality espouses the Bolshevik ideal. It is reminiscent of the Bishop’s complaint to the Commissar of Food that the Boyarsky’s wine list “runs counter to the ideals of the Revolution” (142).

“But in the end, it has been the inconveniences that have mattered to me the most.”

After suggesting to him that “Russia may be inherently inward looking” (351), Anna tells the Count that no one in America is wondering whether the country will open or close the door on the world. She says “[e]veryone dreams of living in America” (351) because of the “conveniences” (351), such as dishwashers, toasters, and automatic garage door openers. The Count replies by arguing that real conveniences include sleeping until noon, climbing into an awaiting carriage, and deciding whether to marry or have children. His conclusion that he has most appreciated the inconveniences suggests how much he has grown during his years at the Metropol. It is the inconveniences that have taught him the most. The arrival of Sofia is an inconvenience at first, for it upends the Count’s routine and requires him to make many personal sacrifices; however, it teaches him to be flexible and to share his space, and it builds in him deeper perception than he had ever had before. It also gives him the most meaningful aspect of his life. Even the house arrest itself leads to growth and friendships he would not have had otherwise, leading Mishka to ask, “Who would have imagined […] when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia” (292).

“For surely, by now, the Russian people knew better than anyone in Europe how good a piece of bread could be.” 

Mishka’s editor had required him to remove lines of a letter in which Chekhov had praised German bread, saying, “People who have never been abroad don’t know how good bread can be.” The Count surmises that the request had been made in order to prevent “feelings of discontent or ill will” (374); however, Chekhov’s comment about bread “was no longer even accurate” (374) because, given the starvation the people have suffered under the Bolsheviks, Russians are more appreciative of bread than ever. In trying to elevate the people, the Bolsheviks have destroyed them, just as Russia destroys its art and cities. The Bolsheviks thus have become the oppressors they’ve sought to destroy. It is one more way in which the novel illustrates how power can manifest similarly, no matter who wields it.

“I assure you, my dear, were you to play the piano on the moon, I would hear every word.”

The Count speaks with Sofia about her decision not to go to Paris to play piano. He is surprised when she tells him she does not want to go because she prefers to stay in the Metropol with him. When he finally convinces her to go, she expresses regret that he will not be there to hear her; he assures her he would hear her even if she were on the moon. This quotation illustrates the depth of the love between the Count and the young woman he considers his daughter. The Count’s insistence that he will be with her wherever she goes foreshadows the end of the novel, when he sends her to America knowing he likely will not see her again. Though they are far apart, their connection will remain strong; he will always find a way to watch over her as a father. It is a similar sentiment to the Count’s earlier statement to Sofia that “[n]o matter how much time passes, those we have loved never slip away from us entirely” (327). The Count makes this comment when Sofia worries over forgetting her mother. The statement foreshadows the time when he, too, will be but a memory to Sofia.

“At that moment, it somehow seemed to the Count that no one was out of place; that every little thing happening was part of some master plan; and that within the context of that plan, he was meant to sit in the chair between the potted palms and wait.”

For six months, the Count has put into place plans to ensure Sofia’s escape to America and his own escape to Novgorod Nizhny. As the final piece of the plan takes place—he sits in the lobby in his favorite chair awaiting the simultaneous ringing of the phones, which will alert him that Sofia is safe—he feels “surprisingly peaceful” (446). He watches the guests of the hotel and listens to the sounds of the Shalyapin. It is a time for him to take in the hotel that’s been his home for so many years. In escaping the hotel, the Count enlists the help of the people he has met there over the years; it is a culmination of his time there. It reiterates that one’s impact on another’s life can be immense, no matter how small the connection, and that because we are interconnected, we are often meant to be exactly where we are. Despite the “inconveniences” (352), the Count’s life has been enriched by his time at the Metropol in ways he would not have thought possible.

“But insetting upright the cocktail glass in the aftermath of the commotion, didn’t he also exhibit an essential faith that by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world?”

When Viktor, at the Count’s recommendation, finally watches Casablanca, he pays special attention to scene in which Rick keeps his composure during Ugarte’s arrest, for the Count had told him Osip believed it to be evidence of Rick’s indifference. However, Viktor believes it is a sign that one can effect big changes even with a seemingly insignificant act. It is fitting that Viktor is the one to espouse this belief, as he himself plays a seemingly minor role in the novel, while he is instrumental in the dramatic conclusion. Throughout his time at the Metropol, the Count has seen how chance encounters or serendipitous events change the course of one’s life, or of history—an idea encapsulated in his belief that a change in temperature affected the course of his life. The belief in the importance of small details is evident even in his helping the young couple at the Piazza choose the wine that best fits their meal. This quotation contributes to the book’s ultimate positive message: goodness and security are possible, and we all have the potential to promote it even with the most minor of deeds.