Doctor Zhivago: Part 14: In Varykino Again Summary & Analysis

Yuri returns home from the hospital as winter sets in again in Yuriatin. Lara informs him that Komarovsky has stopped in the city on his way to the Far East. Komarovsky, Lara explains, visited her and insisted that the couple and Strelnikov are all in great danger and only he can save them. Yuri is resistant to the idea of meeting Komarovsky but agrees to speak with him for Lara’s sake. Komarovsky arrives and immediately addresses Yuri on friendly terms, based on his relationship with the Turi ’s father. Yuri is hostile to him, but Komarovsky is unfazed; he explains that Yuri is a known target of the local party, led by Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov and Tiverzin, who are planning one last major purge as the civil war winds down and the Bolshevik government prepares for peacetime and legal normality.

Komarovsky argues that while Yuri is free to do as he wishes, he has no right to risk Lara and Katenka’s safety. Komarovsky is headed to the Far East to join the last remaining White government, whose existence the Bolshevik authorities in Moscow tacitly tolerate, at least for now. He offers to bring Yuri, Lara, and Katenka with him; he is also planning a prisoner exchange to secure Strelnikov’s freedom. Yuri refuses to join them, telling Lara it is a decision she must make for herself.

Yuri and Lara instead decide to relocate to Varykino and hide out in the Mikulitsyns’ abandoned house. Yuri worries that Lara is making a mistake, but she refuses to leave without him. Yuri suspects that Lara is pregnant and reflects on the poetic force of her recurring presence in his life. Securing a horse and supplies from Samdevyatov, they leave the city for Varykino, which is deserted and entirely covered in snow. The Mikulitsyns’ house remains in good condition, however, though someone else has clearly occupied it in the interim. Yuri and Lara quickly get to work restoring the house, but Yuri’s doubts about Lara’s decision continue to grow. He urges her to reconsider leaving with Komarovsky. When she refuses, he plans to return to writing, hoping that soon he will be able to publish again.

After Lara and Katenka go to sleep, Yuri spends the nights writing. He is extremely productive and feels the more creatively fulfilled than he has been in a long time, observing with wonder how happy he is here despite the circumstances. His midnight reveries are interrupted, however, by a howl; going outside, he realizes that the wolves have returned to Varykino and are prowling close to the house. Not wanting to worry Lara, Yuri decides not to tell her about the wolves. Despite his happiness, Yuri knows that his time with Lara in Varykino is limited. As he works the next night, the howls wake Lara. Though she mistakes the animals for dogs, she is frightened and insists that they leave the next day. Looking outside after she goes back to sleep, Yuri notices more wolves than before, closer to the house.

Day after day, Lara continues to anxiously insist that they leave and pack their things, only to change her mind at the last minute. Though she is packed and ready to go, Lara breaks down and pleads with Yuri to stay and enjoy one more evening together. He consoles her, tells her to unpack, and takes the horse to his family’s old shed to retrieve more firewood. Arriving at his old home, the doctor is struck by the sad, empty appearance of the once-again ruined manor, and he feels a great sense of loneliness. Yuri’s reflections are interrupted by his horse, who suddenly turns toward the Mikulitsyns’ house and neighs. Yuri surmises that the horse smells another horse and worries that they were wrong to think that Varykino was abandoned. Returning home, he finds another horse outside and recognizes Komarovsky’s voice inside arguing with Lara.

Komarovsky greets Yuri and explains that he is offering them one last chance to join him—he is leaving Yuriatin the next morning. Yuri remains unmoved, telling Lara and Komarovsky that he will not leave but that Lara should make her own decision—for Katenka and for herself. Lara still refuses to go without Yuri , and Komarovsky urges the doctor to reconsider for her sake. Komarovsky asks to speak to Yuri in private. Moving to the kitchen, Komarovsky tells the lawyer that Strelnikov has been executed—or so the rumors say. He proposes another plan: if Yuri refuses to go with them, he should lie to Lara, telling her to go with Komarovsky and that Yuri will meet them at the train station. Yuri agrees, though he wonders aloud if he is making a terrible mistake.

After Komarovsky, Lara, and Katenka depart, Yuri instantly regrets his decision and considers rushing out to catch up with them. He imagines Lara’s thoughts: her happiness that he finally relented, and the disappointment she will feel when she learns the truth. Standing on the porch, he watches a bend in the road where they can be seen passing by; Lara too stops, looks back toward him, and they exchange silent goodbyes. As the sun sets, Yuri goes back inside. To distract himself from his grief, he focuses on practical plans, resolving first to make practical arrangements for his own survival, and next to plan his return to Moscow. Instead, however, he finds a bottle of alcohol left behind by Komarovsky and drinks himself into a stupor.  

Alone in Varykino, Yuri slowly loses his grip on reality and spends his time drinking and writing. He writes new poems, many of them obliquely about Lara, but he also completes and edits older works that he left unfinished. He theorizes about history, imagining the slow and imperceptible changes that outlast—and overcome—the history of great individuals, revolutions, and wars. Samdevyatov visits him, bringing him more alcohol and news that Lara successfully left Yuriatin with Komarovsky. Seeing the state that the doctor is in, Samdevyatov promises to return in a few days and bring him back to the city. Yuri hallucinates, imagining the sound of Lara’s voice and of gunshots in the ravine—or so he thinks.

Late in the afternoon, Yuri hears footsteps approaching the house. He wonders who it is—Samdevyatov would arrive on horseback, any arresting officers would come for him in a group, and Varykino is far too isolated for random passersby. The stranger enters, and though it takes Yuri a moment to recognize him, he soon realizes it is none other than Strelnikov. Yuri and Strelnikov talk long into the evening, the soldier telling his story in a disjointed, disordered manner. Strelnikov returned from Siberia much like the doctor did, traveling on foot along the railroad—he too met Teresha Galuzin along the way, and Teresha failed to betray him to the authorities.

Yuri and Strelnikov burn candle after candle talking through the night. Strelnikov tells the doctor that he cannot understand the true meaning of the revolution because of his class background. He continues to interrupt himself, warning the doctor to leave before the authorities track him down—or before the wolves get them both. Strelnikov rambles, raging against the prerevolutionary oppressors, narrating the birth of revolutionary communism, and praising Lara’s beauty and angelic nature. Realizing that his praise for the revolution is wasted on Yuri , Strelnikov focuses on Lara, explaining that his quest was, in part, to avenge the wrongs she suffered.

Yuri tells Strelnikov what Lara told him—that she loves her husband more than anyone else in the world and would give up anything to be together with him as she once was. Strelnikov is deeply moved and asks Yuri to describe the exact circumstances of that conversation, especially Lara’s mannerisms, before anxiously returning to the subject of his imminent arrest. When they finally go to bed, Yuri has the first good night of sleep since Lara left. He dreams about his childhood and is briefly woken up by a noise which he assumes must be part of his dream. The next morning, he calls out to Strelnikov in the next room but receives no answer. He starts making coffee and goes out to the well for water, but in the front yard finds Strelnikov lying dead in the snow—he shot himself in the head.