A Gentleman in Moscow: Book 1, Archaeologies Summary & Analysis

The Count is once again in the hotel bar, performing a magic trick for three of the Bolshoi’s newest ballerinas. As he asks one of them to pick a card, he is pulled away by Arkady. Arkady explains that a gentleman (later revealed to be the Count’s friend Mishka) had knocked on the suite door of a Bolshevik Secretary. Mishka had been surprised to see the Secretary behind the door and burst into the suite, searching the rooms and discovering the Secretary’s wife on the toilet. The Count asks why Arkady is telling him this tale. Arkady explains that it had been the Count’s old suite—and that Mishka had been looking for the Count.

Arkady takes the Count to the lobby and points out the gentleman. The Count immediately recognizes Mikhail Fyodorovich Mindich (Mishka), who is like a brother to him even though they had very different upbringings. While the Count had been raised in a mansion, Mishka grew up in a two-room apartment with his mother. They had met at University when the Count rushed to Mikhail’s aid in a fight, and they became fast friends.

The Count and Mishka (the Count’s nickname for Mikhail) retreat to the Count’s new room. Mishka notes that the Count didn’t like Montaigne’s essays, as they are being used to help prop up the Count’s desk. The Count asks why Mishka has come. Mishka produces a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and the Count, now understanding why he’s come, brings Mishka back into his secret study.

Mishka thinks back to the summers when he would go to visit the Count’s family estate. The Countess enjoyed Mishka’s and the Count’s discourse questioning the standing of the church or the ruling class. Then the two friends would go in search of Helena, where the Count would tell her ridiculous tales of what had happened to him at school or on the train home. Helena, like the other members of the Count’s family, would often ask what was to become of the Count. Mishka thinks that those summers were idyllic, but that they belonged in the past with outmoded traditions and the servitude of the lower class.

Mishka picks up a photo on the Count’s bookcase, which contains a picture of the Grand Duke when he signed the treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War. He thinks back to 1910, when he first witnessed the Rostov family’s tradition of gathering on the tenth anniversary of a family member’s death and raising a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. At that time, the Grand Duke had raised a glass to the Count’s late parents. Interrupting Mishka’s reverie, the Count hands him a glass, and they toast to the Grand Duke, whom Mishka describes with reverence as “a man of another time.”

Later in the evening, Mishka tells the Count about the upcoming congress of RAPP, the Russian Association of Proletarian writers. Mishka conveys his excitement about how they will forge a new style of poetry for the age. Mishka compares the ages of poetry to the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages of history. He says that they have now entered the age of Steel—exemplified by the Shukhov Radio Tower, which can broadcast information for miles. Mishka says that poetry is also keeping up with this age, that the new poetry will become an art of action.

The Count is glad to hear Mishka speak so passionately, because he always worried that Mishka was out of step with the times. Now, he sees, Mishka is finally in the right place at the right time. When the twice-tolling clock strikes twelve, Mishka and the Count toast not only to the Grand Duke but also to Helena and the Countess, to Russia and the Rostov estate, to poetry and any other worthy thing they can think of.