1950 / Adagio, Andante, Allegro

BOOK FOUR

Summary: 1950 / Adagio, Andante, Allegro

Sofia is now seventeen, intelligent like her mother but more demure, and, unlike her mother, dark-haired, except for a streak of white growing from the site of her old injury. The Count and Vasily have been talking philosophically about how quickly children grow up, but when the Count learns that Sofia is in the ballroom with Viktor Skadovsky, the Piazza’s orchestra conductor, the Count’s mood changes. He has Viktor by the lapels before Sofia can make him understand that Viktor, an accomplished pianist who only conducts the Piazza orchestra to make ends meet, is giving Sofia a piano lesson. Sofia gives a moving rendition of Chopin’s famous nocturne in E-flat major. She summons the required melancholy, she tells the Count, by thinking of her mother. He tells Sofia of his times with Nina in the ballroom.

Later, in the Piazza, the Count sees a young man sketching. An architect by trade, the man is drawing interiors for a tourist brochure. When the man remarks on the Piazza’s slightly run-down condition, the Count argues that guests, not furnishings or architecture, make a space. That evening, the Count has drinks with Richard, now a civilian with the American State Department who is in Moscow regularly. They have become friends, alike and compatible, perhaps because places like the Shalyapin were designed for men like them.

Thinking about Viktor and the architect, the Count remembers a biology lesson from his father, about moths adapting to a sooty environment by changing color. Just so, the Count thinks, we should be grateful we can adapt, while in secret we pursue our dreams. At that moment, Viktor is choosing a Bach piece for Sofia to learn; far away, Mishka is stitching a book together by candlelight; and the architect is drawing the latest in a series of fantastical images, this one featuring a crowded restaurant with a central fountain, gears beneath the floor, and a middle-aged gentlemen about to set the machinery in motion.

Analysis: 1950 / Adagio, Andante, Allegro

Throughout the novel, characters continually adapt to their changing circumstances to survive. The Count recalls his father telling him about how moths change and camouflage their color within a single generation to survive in nature, reflecting how the characters must also adapt, particularly in their art. The Count, whose place in society changed from the aristocracy to the working class, adapted to his new social standing by utilizing his relevant skills and translating them into his job as a waiter. Anna’s career was doomed to fail until she adapted to talking pictures by taking roles that were enhanced by her husky voice. The architect adapted to Russia’s streamlined approach to architecture and used his skills to render the rooms in the Metropol instead. Viktor found a way to carry out his art by playing in the Piazza, and now Nina lives on through Sofia’s piano playing. Despite Bolshevik censorship, Mishka is determined to continue his art and adapt with his new project. The Bolshevik Revolution was the inciting incident for all these major adaptations to take place within a single generation for both art and the individual to survive.