Doctor Zhivago Part 14: In Varykino Again Summary

Part 14, Chapter 1

• It's winter again.
• Zhivago comes home one day and finds Lara waiting for him at the door. She tells him that the lawyer Komarovsky has visited and that he wants to talk to him.
• Zhivago hates this man for seducing Lara when she was younger. But apparently Komarovsky is a powerful man who knows that Zhivago and Lara are going to be arrested soon. He is heading east and says he can take them with him to safety if they let him.
• Zhivago says he'd rather leave than look at Komarovsky's face.
• When Komarovsky shows up, he tries to act all buddy buddy with Zhivago, but Zhivago ain't buying it.
• Komarovsky gets down to business. Zhivago is on the chopping block. There is a new government forming in the far eastern part of Russia, where he would be able to live in peace. All he and Lara need to do is accept Komarovsky's help and go with him. He also offers to save Pasha Antipov as well.

Part 14, Chapter 2

• While he's getting tipsy off of Zhivago's liquor, Komarovsky goes on and on about Mongolia and how it's a place of almost total freedom because it isn't controlled by Russia, China, or Japan.
• Finally, Zhivago tells Komarovsky that he's overstayed his welcome and should go.
• Komarovsky argues that he won't find his way around in an unfamiliar town when it's so dark out.
• Zhivago says that that's Komarovsky's fault for staying so long. Ain't no way he's staying the night, at least not anywhere near him and Lara. If he wants to stay in an outside room with the rats, that's fine.
• Surprisingly, Komarovsky takes Zhivago up on this offer.

Part 14, Chapter 3

• It's the day after Komarovsky's visit. Lara has heard from yet one more person that Zhivago is going to be taken away by police at any second.
• Zhivago agrees that the time has come to disappear. They agree that they should leave, even though it's crazy.
• After they decide to leave, Lara tells Zhivago that there's something he needs to know. He assumes that she must be pregnant with his child.

Part 14, Chapter 4

• Lara and Zhivago drive out of town on a cart early in the morning so that few people will see them leave. They don't, after all, want anyone to know where they're going.
• They blow past Komarovsky on their way out of town, not bothering to acknowledge him in any way.
• People see them leaving, but they've hidden their luggage so well that no one assumes they're leaving for good.
• Lara and Zhivago reach Varykino, where Zhivago hurries to get everything packed into the house before night falls.
• Before going into the Zhivagos' old house, though, they decide to check out the main house—the Mikulitsyns'.

Part 14, Chapter 5

• When Zhivago and Lara get to the Mikulitsyns' house, they find a big padlock on the front door. Zhivago pries it off.
• Zhivago and Lara are surprised by the way the inside of the house is arranged. Basically, they know that someone has been living here, and probably still is. They have no clue who, though.
• The house is so nice-looking that Zhivago and Lara decide to live in it instead of the Zhivagos' old one.
• Lara and Zhivago fall asleep under their fur coats without lighting a fire.

Part 14, Chapter 6

• When he wakes up the next day, Zhivago is overjoyed at the thought of sitting down to write at the house's big wooden desk. It's been years since he's been able to sit down, reflect, and write his ideas down.
• Katenka is cold and doesn't like staying in this new house. But Zhivago finds her some toys that used to belong to the Mikulitsyn children, and she settles down to play with them.
• As the chapter closes, Zhivago also finds an old wooden tub that Lara's been looking for to do some laundry in.

Part 14, Chapter 7

• For the next few days, Zhivago, Lara, and Katenka eat like royalty. Things actually seem pretty great in this new place.
• Still, Zhivago knows that this is all temporary. It's not a life. He asks Lara is she'd ever reconsider Komarovsky's offer to keep her safe. She says she'd only do it if Zhivago came, which he says he won't do.
• Zhivago wants to ask Anfim Efimovich back in Yuriatin to keep them supplied with food and wood for six months, on the promise that Zhivago will write a great book whose profits will be shared with Anfim. Zhivago is very restless to write, and he can't see himself devoting the rest of his days to farm work.
• Zhivago can't stand the idea of failing to preserve all the thoughts and stories that are floating around in his head.

Part 14, Chapter 8

• Zhivago, Lara, and Katenka all bathe with hot water, something they haven't done for a long time.
• Once everyone has fallen asleep, Zhivago gets up in the middle of the night and goes to his office to start writing.
• Zhivago writes out a few poems that, the narrator tells us, would eventually be lost and never found again by anyone. So what's the point of writing, you ask? Well, we're just going to leave that one with you for the moment.
• While he writes, Zhivago feels like some higher power is speaking through him.
• It's not until a couple of hours have passed that Zhivago looks up from his work. He hears a sound outside and looks out the window to find that there are wolves hanging around.
• Zhivago decides not to tell Lara so as not to frighten her. He decides to stop writing because now he can't think about anything except the wolves.

Part 14, Chapter 9

• Another day goes by in Zhivago's new household. It starts to get much colder in the house, and he has to work hard to heat it.
• Zhivago realizes that he won't be able to live with Lara in Varykino forever, and that the time of their parting is coming soon.
• Zhivago looks over his scribblings from the night before and is disappointed to find that the stuff he thought was genius at the time is actually kind of lame.
• Zhivago tries to write again, this time with more discipline and during the daytime. But soon enough, he slides right back into crazy, frenzied writing.
• Soon enough, it's night. Lara gets out of bed and asks Zhivago about the howling of the wolves. They've come closer to the house than they were the night before.

Part 14, Chapter 10

• On the thirteenth day of their stay in Varykino, Lara starts packing for them to go back to Yuriatin. She wants them to have some sort of structure in their lives.
• Zhivago doesn't try to persuade her to stay. He starts putting the harnesses on their horse, knowing that he and Lara are probably riding back to their deaths in Yuriatin.
• When they're ready to go, Lara asks if they can stay one more night, and Zhivago agrees.

Part 14, Chapter 11

• Zhivago goes out to collect firewood to heat the Varykino house for one more night. His horse starts neighing because it can hear another horse in the distance.
• Zhivago has to wonder if the village of Varykino is as deserted as he'd thought.
• When he gets back to the main house, Zhivago finds Lara arguing with a visitor—the lawyer, Komarovsky.
• It sounds like Komarovsky is trying to convince Lara to leave Zhivago, who he says will get the woman killed.
• Komarovsky says he can't believe that Zhivago won't accept his offer to keep them safe, so he has come one last time to talk some sense into them. He says that a train has come on its way to the Far Eastern Republic where he plans to take them. But they need to leave immediately if they want to catch it.
• Lara says she'll only go with Komarovsky if Zhivago goes, too.
• Zhivago says that Komarovsky should leave with Lara. He wants to stay at the house and tidy up before leaving. Lara won't agree to this, though, so Zhivago asks for a word in private with Komarovsky.

Part 14, Chapter 12

• Komarovsky tells Zhivago that Strelnikov (Lara's husband, Pasha) has been sentenced to death and executed. It won't be long before the authorities come for Lara, too.
• Overcome with the news, Zhivago tells Komarovsky to lie to Lara and say that he (Zhivago) is coming, just for the sake of getting Lara and Katenka to safety. Zhivago, though, plans to stay behind.

Part 14, Chapter 13

• Zhivago is sad that he and Lara have parted without a proper goodbye, but lying was the only way for him to get her to safety. He watches Lara and Komarovsky ride away on the lawyer's sleigh until they disappear from sight.
• Looking around, Zhivago realizes that his grief has sharpened his senses and that he's seeing the world around him more clearly.
• Zhivago goes into the house and starts saying a monologue to Lara as if she were still there.
• Zhivago finds a bottle of liquor that Komarovsky has left behind and starts drinking it down with greedy gulps.

Part 14, Chapter 14

• Zhivago stops looking after himself and goes a little crazy now that Lara is gone. All he really does is sit around and write poems and speeches devoted to her.
• Zhivago goes from this into writing about his ideas of human history, of revolution, and of how things seem to always proceed in a slow, vegetable way. For him, it's foolish for individual humans to try to violently change the course of history.
• One day, Anfim Efimovich comes to call on him. He tells Zhivago that Lara and Katenka got away safely with Komarovsky. Efimovich sees how disheveled Zhivago is and promises to come back soon to take him away from Varykino.
• Sometimes while writing, Zhivago starts to hallucinate and think he hears Lara's voice calling him inside the house.

Part 14, Chapter 15

• Finally, Zhivago hears the voice of reason and realizes that he is slowly killing himself with all his drinking and writing. He decides that as soon as Anfim Efimovich comes back, he'll go with him.
• That evening, Zhivago hears someone's footsteps crunching in the snow outside. He knows it's not Anfim Efimovich. So who is it? He imagines it's some sort of police group that has finally tracked him down.
• The person enters the house and pauses on the threshold when he sees Zhivago. Zhivago demands to know what he wants. He knows, though, that this is the person who was already living in this house when he and Lara first arrived.
• When he gets a good look at the visitor's face, Zhivago realizes that it's none other than… (drum roll, please)…
• Strelnikov. Pasha Antipov. Lara's husband. The guy Komarovsky said was already dead.

Part 14, Chapter 16

• Zhivago and Strelnikov get to some serious talking. Strelnikov, in fact, can't seem to stop. A long-winded confession of all the terrible things he's done just keeps pouring out of him.
• Strelnikov tells about how he first found out that Zhivago was having an affair with his wife, and how he remembered letting Zhivago go the first time they met on the train. He says that he was jealous of Zhivago then and still is now.
• Strelnikov goes on to tell his story of how he quit his military role before he could be arrested by the Reds. Unfortunately, he was betrayed by someone he thought was a friend and had to flee through Siberia on foot, hiding and starving. The guy who betrayed him was Terenty Galuzin, the young man who survived a firing squad earlier in the book.
• Zhivago fills Strelnikov in on Terenty's background.
• Strelnikov says that the authorities have tracked him to this place and won't be long in coming to Varykino. He says he's long lost the ability to sleep and asks Zhivago if he'll stay up talking with him all night. Zhivago agrees.

Part 14, Chapter 17

• Strelnikov starts talking about how the Russian Revolution happened. He says that Zhivago could never understand because he grew up middle-class. But Strelnikov grew up near the railroads, where workers were constantly living in filth and treated as slaves by business owners.
• At the end of his speech, Strelnikov tells Zhivago that if he plans on living, he needs to leave right away. The police will be coming for him (Strelnikov) soon.
• Strelnikov goes back to talking about the Revolution and about how smitten he was when he first saw Lara.
• After he met Lara, Strelnikov forgot about the Revolution for a while and became a normal teacher for her sake. But as time passed, he got the itch to start fighting for the cause again.
• Strelnikov imagines that Lara probably hates him by this point. Zhivago tells him that on the contrary, even when they were having their affair, Lara said that she would leave in a heartbeat to be with Strelnikov again.
• Strelnikov wants to know exactly what the scene was like when Lara said this because he wants to picture it.

Part 14, Chapter 18

• For the first time in a while, Zhivago has a good night's sleep after talking with Strelnikov. He sleeps so long that he even has a headache from oversleeping.
• When he gets up, Zhivago calls out for Strelnikov but doesn't get an answer.
• Zhivago grabs a bucket and goes out to the well for water. But when he gets outside, he finds Strelnikov with his head in a snowdrift. He's shot himself in the head.