Doctor Zhivago (novel)
Part 2
### Part 2

During the [Russo\-Japanese War](/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War "Russo-Japanese War") (1904–1905\), Amalia Karlovna Guichard arrives in [Moscow](/wiki/Moscow "Moscow") from the [Urals](/wiki/Urals "Urals") with her two children: Rodion (Rodya) and Larissa (Lara). Guichard's late husband was a Belgian who had been working as an engineer for the railroad and had been friends with Victor Ippolitovich Komarovsky, a lawyer and "cold\-blooded businessman". Komarovsky sets them up in rooms at the seedy Montenegro hotel, enrolls Rodion in the [Cadet Corps](/wiki/Cadet_Corps "Cadet Corps") and enrolls Lara in a girls' high school. The girls' school is the same school that Nadya Kologrivov attends. On Komarovsky's advice, Amalia invests in a small dress shop. Amalia and her children live at the Montenegro for about a month before moving into the apartment over the dress shop. Despite an ongoing affair with Amalia, Komarovsky begins to groom Lara behind her mother's back.

In early October, the workers of the Moscow\-Brest railroad line go on strike. The foreman of the station is Pavel Ferapontovich Antipov. His friend Kiprian Savelyevich Tiverzin is called into one of the railroad workshops and stops a workman from beating his apprentice (whose name is Osip (Yusupka) Gimazetdinovich Galiullin). The police arrest Pavel Ferapontovich for his role in the strike. Pavel Ferapontovich's boy, Patulya (or Pasha or Pashka) Pavlovich Antipov, comes to live with Tiverzin and his mother. Tiverzin's mother and Patulya attend a demonstration which is attacked by dragoons, but they survive and return home. As the protestors flee the dragoons, Nikolai Nikolaevich (Yuri's uncle) is standing inside a Moscow apartment, at the window, watching the people flee. Some time ago, he moved from the Volga region to Petersburg, and at the same time moved Yuri to Moscow to live at the Gromeko household. Nikolai Nikolaevich had then come to Moscow from Petersburg earlier in the Fall, and is staying with the Sventitskys, who were distant relations. The Gromeko household consists of Alexander Alexandrovich Gromeko, his wife Anna Ivanovna, and his bachelor brother Nikolai Alexandrovich. Anna is the daughter of a wealthy steel magnate, now deceased, from the Yuriatin region in the Urals. They have a daughter Tonya.

In January 1906, the Gromekos host a chamber music recital at their home one night. One of the performers is a cellist who is a friend of Amalia's, and her next\-door neighbor at the Montenegro.Pevear \& Volokhonsky trans., p. 23 (Tyshkevich is a cellist who lives next to the Guichards at the Montenegro); p. 62 (Tyshkevich is one of the performers at the Gromekos); p. 63 (Fadai Kazimirovich Tyshkevich is his full name). Midway through the performance, the cellist is recalled to the Montenegro because, he is told, someone there is dying. Alexander Alexandrovich, Yuri and Misha come along with the cellist. At the Montenegro, the boys stand in a public corridor outside one of the rooms,The room is Room 24, the room in which the Guichards lived, but it appears they no longer live there at the time of this incident. Pasternak has told us that the Guichards moved to Moscow before the end of the Russo\-Japanese War, which means they arrive in Moscow no later than early September 1905\. Pevear \& Volokhonsky trans., p. 22\. He also has told us that the Guichards started to live at the Montenegro immediately upon their arrival in Moscow, and that they stayed there "about a month" before they moved into the apartment over the dress shop. Pevear \& Volokhonsky trans., p. 22\. That means they vacated the Montenegro in October – November at the latest. But the suicide incident is in January. Perhaps this an oversight on Pasternak's part. Another explanation is that Komarovsky has retained the Montenegro room for his assignations with Lara, and Amalia has discovered them there together. Pasternak says that the commotion among the servants started before the suicide incident, and "before Komarovsky arrived" but this does not clarify whether Amalia's suicide attempt was before Komarovsky's arrival, or because of it. Pasternak, adopting the perspective of the servants, says "this foolish Guichard woman was being pumped full in number 24" not, for example, "... being pumped full in her room." Pevear \& Volokhonsky trans., p. 22\. embarrassed, while Amalia, who has taken poison, is treated with an [emetic](/wiki/Emetic "Emetic"). Eventually, they are shooed into the room by the boarding house employees who are using the corridor. The boys are assured that Amalia is out of danger and, once inside the room, see her, half\-naked and sweaty, talking with the cellist; she tells him that she had "suspicions" but "fortunately it all turned out to be foolishness." The boys then notice, in a dark part of the room, a girl (it is Lara) asleep on a chair. Unexpectedly, Komarovsky emerges from behind a curtain and brings a lamp to the table next to Lara's chair. The light wakes her up and she, unaware that Yuri and Misha are watching, shares a private moment with Komarovsky, "as if he were a puppeteer and she a puppet, obedient to the movements of his hand." They exchange conspiratorial glances, pleased that their secret was not discovered and that Amalia did not die. This is the first time Yuri sees Lara, and he is fascinated by the scene. Misha then whispers to Yuri that the man he is watching is the same one who got his father drunk on the train shortly before his father's suicide.


How does Yuri first see Lara and what impression does he have of her?