Doctor Zhivago: Part 9: Varykino Summary & Analysis

Yuri starts to write again, especially as winter approaches. In his diary, he details the pleasure he takes in living off the land with his family. Still, the Zhivagos’ situation is precarious; Mikulitsyn keeps secret their illegal occupation of their formerly abandoned manor, though their distance from the city protects them from closer inspection by the authorities. Despite his best attempts to lay low, the local peasants quickly learn that Yuri is a doctor, and they frequently call on him for medical help. By and large, however, the family depends on Samdevyatov’s generosity. The Zhivagos’ first harvest is quite successful, and they spend the winter resting and rereading the few books they have with them. Yuri begins to suspect that Tonya is pregnant again. He feels closer to her than ever, especially after their long wartime separation.

In his diary, Yuri writes about art as the exploration and assertion of life, the search for the soul—of humanity, nature, or the world. He worries that he is increasingly sickly and wonders if he is developing the same heart condition that killed his mother. He mixes his reflections on nature and life with his re-readings of Russian novels and poems by Pushkin, Chekhov, Nekrasov, and others. Yuri prepares to put literature aside as spring approaches again, knowing that the harvest will demand his full attention. In his final diary entry, Yuri describes how his half-brother Evgraf Zhivago visited the family, good-naturedly refuses to reveal how he found them and what he is doing there. Evgraf soon moves on, but from his frequent trips to Yuriatin Yuri gathers that his half-brother is extremely well-connected with the revolutionary regime and marvels at Evgraf’s auspicious role in his life.

Yuri visits Yuriatin more frequently in order to spend time in the library reading room. He absorbs himself in ethnographies of the region, as well as histories of the Pugachev rebellion. Yuri identifies one of the librarians as Avdotya Tuntseva, but he is suddenly distracted by the woman she is talking to: Lara Antipova. Yuri hesitates to speak to her, and he realizes he has been dreaming about her. He returns to his work, not wanting to disturb her reading, and she is gone by the next time he looks up. While he returns his books Yuri stealthily reads Lara’s catalogue requests and finds her address, listed as a building “opposite the house with figures”—he learns that her apartment faces a building distinguished by its elaborate caryatids, formerly the Merchants’ Association and now the Communist Party headquarters.

Yuri cancels his plans so that he can find Lara Antipova instead. He arrives at her building and finds his way into the courtyard, where he sees her drawing water from a well. Her handkerchief is blown off by the wind, and he picks it up and returns it to her, much to her surprise. Lara takes him upstairs to the apartment she shares with her daughter Katenka. The building is in disrepair, she explains, after being damaged in the street fighting the previous spring. Now, it’s infested with rats. Yuri is impressed by her lack of fear and practical plans to fix it.

In the apartment, Yuri tells Lara the story of his journey to Yuriatin; Lara is especially impressed to learn that he met Strelnikov. Yuri concedes that Strelnikov confounded his expectations, but he tells her he believes the Bolsheviks, who distrust Strelnikov as a non-party officer, will eventually betray Strelnikov. This news seems to upset Lara, who criticizes Yuri’s increasingly hostile attitude toward the revolution in general. Yuri, for his part, justifies the revolution as an appropriate reaction to Tsarist oppression but condemns its growing excesses. Lara contrasts the situation now to the White terror she and the other residents experienced before Strelnikov captured the city, a period of indiscriminate killing that even the noble-minded Galliulin was unable to restrain. Just then, Katenka enters, interrupting Yuri and Lara’s argument. The child’s precociousness and kind demeanor impress Yuri .

Yuri refuses Lara’s invitation to dinner and prepares to leave in order to get back to Varykino by his own family’s dinnertime. She insists he stay just a little longer—and confesses that Strelnikov is indeed her husband, Pasha Antipov. Yuri is skeptical, but Lara is convinced—even Galliulin knows this, she argues, but he was too noble to try to use her and Katenka to reach his archenemy while the Whites controlled the city. Though Lara’s efforts to see Strelnikov/Antipov have been unsuccessful, she does not doubt his love for her and Katenka. She sees his single-minded mission as a perverse need to prove himself to her—it’s a need he cannot abandon until total victory.

Months later, Yuri returns to Varykino on horseback after a visit to Lara. Yuri feels increasingly guilty for deceiving Tonya, whom he still loves deeply. Yuri resolves to confess everything to her and to promise Tonya he will not see Lara again. He tells Lara his intentions, and while she cries, she tells him to do what he thinks is best. Yuri worries she misunderstood his intentions and feels increasingly upset before he comes to sudden resolution: why not put off his confession a little longer? Yuri is relieved and sends his horse galloping ahead but a shot fired into the air stops him in his tracks. Blocking his path ahead are three of Liberius’s partisans, who explain they are mobilizing him as a replacement medic and taking him to the front—and they will kill him if he refuses.