A Gentleman in Moscow

On March 21, the Count uses hotel stationery to write a note that he then slips discreetly onto the bell captain’s desk. He then goes for his weekly barber appointment, where he draws out the time as long as possible. Finally, a bellhop tells the barber he has an urgent message from the manager. Frustrated, the barber leaves the Count alone.

Ever since learning Sofia was leaving for Paris in six months, the Count, usually a man “unmoved by the ticking of the clock” (390), has been counting how many times the twice-tolling clock would chime before her departure. In December, he had taken one of the Catherine the Great coronation coins from the Grand Duke’s desk and purchased a suitcase and other travel necessities, which he gave to Sofia on Christmas Eve. He had hired Viktor Stepanovich to help Sofia practice. Also, he had “commissioned Marina to fashion a new dress for the concert” (392), and instead of playing Zut at dinner, they practice French. In March, the Count went to the basement of the Metropol, to a bookshelf full of books that guests had left behind, and he had retrieved one of two Paris tour guides.

Now, in the barber’s shop, the Count hurries to the glass case and takes the seldom-used bottle of “the Fountain of Youth,” which Yaroslav Yaroslavl had shown him many years before. He also takes a spare razor.

Later, in his room, the Count uses the razor to remove a foldout map from the guide book. He also uses a red pen to draw a route down the Champs-Élysées. Then, he retrieves his father’s copy of Montaigne’s essays and reads “the passages his father had underlined” (394). Finally, he shakes his head, “crosse[s] himself twice,” and removes with the razor “the text from two hundred pages of the masterpiece” (394).

One night in May, the Count sees an elegant Italian couple leaving the hotel, having stopped at Vasily’s desk to obtain show tickets and a dinner reservation. He goes up to their fourth-floor room, lets himself in with Nina’s passkey, and withdraws from the bedroom a pair of tan pants and a white oxford shirt.

Later that night he sits in the Shalyapin, “reviewing his checklist” (396). He now has his Catherine the Great coins, the guide book, the Fountain of Youth, the clothes, and a needle and thread obtained from Marina. He believes “the matter of notice” (396) will be “the most difficult element of his plan to achieve” (396) but is “prepared to proceed without it” (396).

The Count accepts champagne on the house from Audrius, even though since turning 60 he generally does not drink alcohol after 11 p.m. As he watches Pudgy Webster talking to the journalists, he thinks of Richard and is struck with an idea. He then sees Pudgy wave to Richard’s literature-professor friend.

When Pudgy goes to his room later that night, the Count is already inside. Pudgy had fumbled with his keys outside the door but became “more sober” (397) upon entering his room. After Pudgy asks if the Count is the waiter in the Boyarsky, the Count says he needs a letter delivered to someone in Paris and that he believes Pudgy may know this person; though not explicitly stated, he has deduced that Pudgy works with Richard.

The Count again breaks his rule and indulges in two glasses of brandy with Pudgy. Later, he sneaks back into the Italian couple’s room to take a hat he had seen earlier. Inside the closet, he notices a carefully-wrapped package containing Russian nesting dolls “in which they could easily hide something” (399). As he opens the dolls on the bed, he hears the key in the lock. He grabs the nesting dolls and hides in the closet, listening to the couple prepare for bed and turn out the lights. Later, he frightens the couple by causing a commotion leaving the room, calling, “Arrivederci!” (401) as he exits.

In Anna’s room, Anna, Marina, and the Count gather to see Sofia in the blue gown Marina has fashioned for her. The Count is dumbstruck by how grown-up she looks and, though generally of the mind that “life […] is the manifestation of a thousand transitions” (402), believes that it is “at that very moment [that] she crossed the threshold into adulthood” (402). However, as she spins, he is irate that the dress is backless. Marina, offended by his objections, says they “have no interest in your scruples” (403) and that “just because you witnessed the Comet of 1812, does not mean that Sofia must wear a petticoat and bustle” (404). Anna fetches a blue sapphire choker for Sofia; Anna and Marina agree it is perfect.

In the hallway, Anna teases the Count, who insists he is not “stodgy” (404). She says his hesitation is “understandable” (405) but that Sofia’s “back is lovely” (405). When the Count observes that “the world needn’t be presented with every single one of her vertebrae” (405), Anna reminds him, “You have often admired my vertebrae…” (405).

The Triumvirate’s daily meeting with the Bishop now meets in the office of the Bishop, who has the three men sit in chairs of “such delicate proportions” (406) that they “feel like schoolboys called before their principal” (406).

Scanning the reservation book, the Bishop asks about the upcoming dinner of the Presidium and the Council of Ministers. When Andrey comments that the Count will serve the gathering, the Bishop says he prefers Andrey to serve while the Count stays in the Boyarsky. The Count is horrified because the gathering is “tailor made to his intentions” (407) and, “with just sixteen days until the Conservatory’s tour, the Count was simply out of time” (407). As they leave the meeting, the Count requests Andrey’s attention.

On June 11, the Count prepares to serve at the “1954 combined dinner of the Presidium and the Council of Ministers” (408): Andrey, who had been instructed by the Bishop to serve the dinner, says has been dealing with hand tremors as he ages and that they are especially bad today. Emile laments that it is the very skill that makes Andrey so skilled at his work that he is beginning to lose.

Comrade Propp, who organizes the dinner, is pleased that Alexander Rostov will serve because, though too young to know of the Count’s house arrest, he knows him to be an impeccable waiter who “could be counted upon to attend to every detail on the table” (409). The Count is not surprised or nonplussed by Comrade Propp’s comment that there is to be no assigned seating, for within the Communist Party (once the Bolshevik Party) officials have an implicit understanding of hierarchy and know where they should sit. The six most powerful men, including General Secretary Khrushchev, take the seats at the head of the U-shaped arrangement. As “it is the business of capable waiters to overhear” (412), the Count hears “every single word” (412) said at the table.

Just before 11 p.m., Khrushchev proposes a toast and asks everyone to go to the window. At precisely 10:59 p.m., the Count extinguishes the candles. Khrushchev tells them the new power plant in Obninsk has become “fully operational—six months ahead of schedule” (413). At 11 p.m., the group watches as the lights go out all over the city and then turn back on: they “seemed to burn brighter with the electricity from the first nuclear power plant in the world” (414). The group applauds.

People all over the city are inconvenienced by the shutting off of the lights—everyone except those in the Boyarsky, “where for almost fifty years the ambience had been defined by candlelight” (415).