A Gentleman in Moscow: Book 4, 1950, Adagio, Andante, Allegro Summary & Analysis

Vasily and the Count are chatting about how much Sofia has grown, and the Count thinks that her growth from thirteen to seventeen occurred in the blink of an eye. He also thinks about how he had presumed that she would be a dark-haired version of Nina when she grew up, but in fact she is very different in demeanor. Where her mother had been impatient with the world and assertive, Sofia is demure and views the world as well-intentioned.

The Count also thinks about the paradox that in adulthood, one experiences time so quickly that many years pass in a blur, often with few memories. But in childhood and early adulthood, every experience becomes indelibly imprinted in one’s mind. The Count posits it as a way of balancing the world’s aggregate experience of time: adults forget a period of life so that children might be able to remember it.

The Count then asks Vasily where Sofia is. Vasily says that she is in the ballroom with Viktor Stepanovich, the conductor of the orchestra at the Piazza. The Count, fearing that Stepanovich has some kind of ill-intention with his daughter, rushes to the ballroom and takes the man by the lapels.

Stepanovich says that there must be some mistake, and Sofia explains to the Count that Stepanovich is teaching her how to play the piano. She plays the Count a nocturne by Chopin. He is astonished by her skill but even more so by her musical expression, which conveys so much love and loss, even as a seventeen-year-old.

When Sofia finishes, the Count asks her why she didn’t tell him she was learning piano. She explains that she had wanted it to be a surprise for his birthday and is sorry if she upset him. He compliments her on her playing, telling her that only one in a hundred thousand piano students could bring the piece to life as she did.

The Count asks Sofia how she conveys so much heartache in her playing; Sofia tells him that she thinks of Nina, and how her memories of her mother seem to be fading. The Count tells Sofia that he used to feel the same way about Helena. He goes on to explain how the ballroom was one of Nina’s favorite rooms, and how he would crawl on the balcony with her. He tells Sofia about her mother’s experiments, testing the principles of Newton and Galileo. They are quiet for a moment until Sofia kisses the Count on the cheek.

Sofia goes to meet a friend, and the Count goes to lunch in the Piazza. He notices a young man at a neighboring table sketching. When he enquires about the sketch, the young man says that he is sketching the interior of the restaurant. The Count looks at the drawing, which captures the restaurant perfectly. The man explains that he is an architect, but that there is little need for architects in Moscow at the moment (a footnote explains that aesthetic individuality in buildings has been eschewed in favor of efficiency and universality). Thus, he is drawing sketches of Moscow’s hotels so that he can draw them more elegantly than they actually appear.

The Count explains that the restaurant has never been defined by its furnishing or architecture, but instead by its citizens. It is a gathering place for the city of Moscow. He explains that he has seen romances bloom, debates spark, and people of all kinds rub elbows. The architect observes that a room is the summation of all that has happened inside of it.

That evening, the Count gets a drink with Richard and explains how Sofia came to learn piano. She had taught herself to play a Mozart Variation and was practicing when Stepanovich heard her and asked her where she was studying. When she said that she was not studying with anyone, he immediately offered to take her on as a student. Richard and the Count toast to Sofia.

Richard is now attached to the State Department in America and usually stays at the embassy, but he stops by the Metropol on occasion to get a drink with the Count. They drink to old friends, as they feel that they are kindred spirits even though they have known each other for only four years.

Richard comments that he can’t believe it’s the conductor from the Piazza who is teaching Sofia, but the Count remarks that Stepanovich had actually studied at the Conservatory in Moscow. He only conducts to make ends meet. Audrius chimes in from behind the bar that one must make ends meet or “meet one’s end.” Audrius’s statement launches the Count into a story about the moths of Manchester, a story that his father enjoyed telling him as a child. But just as he starts to tell it, Richard gets a phone call from his wife, saying that he must come home.

The narrator explains the moths of Manchester, an example of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. As a boy, the Count had learned about evolution and it made sense to him, but he was surprised to hear his father say that natural selection did not always take hundreds of years.

The Count’s father had pointed to the moths of Manchester, most of which for thousands of years had white wings and black flecking (though a few in each generation would have pitch black wings) The lighter coloring provided them with camouflage against the region’s trees. But when Manchester became crowded with factories, soot settled onto the barks of the trees. Suddenly, the moths that had pitch black wings were camouflaged much better, and within a hundred years, over 90% of the moths had black wings.

This lesson did not sit well with the Count at the time, but years later, he realizes he had been looking at the matter wrong. Though the color of the moth’s wings had changed, the moth species still persisted as a whole. The Count sees Stepanovich, and the man sketching, and even Mishka, as examples of these moths.

The Count heads upstairs for bed, and the narrator remarks that even while the Count is brushing his teeth, Viktor Stepanovich is setting aside an arrangement for Sofia. Mishka is sewing together pages for a book. The young architect is working on a drawing of a crowded restaurant. Under the restaurant’s floor is a mechanism of axles, cogs, and gears, and towering over the room through a glass ceiling is an older gentleman with his hand on a crank.