A pastoral idyll in the midst of Doctor Zhivago

The Zhivago family completes the long railroad journey from Moscow into the Urals and settles in at the old farmstead formerly owned by Tonya Z's family - the long chapter that describes their arrival in the small town and their acclimatization to the rural life is another example of Boris Pasternak at his best - so beautifully capturing a mood and a sense of time and place (without really moving the story forward). The Zhivagos face a number of problems, notably that they would be victimized and ostracized if it were widely known that Tonya's mother was a landholding aristocrat or that Yuri Z is a Moscow-educated doctor. The family now settled in the farmstead almost turns them away, essentially to die in the snow, but they grudgingly give the Zs an outbuilding in which to live; much of this chapter involves their description of their repairs to the house, preparation for winter, etc. It's truly a pastoral idyll in the middle of the epic novel, as Yuri Z. comes to believe he has truly found some kind of happiness - though the word of his being a doctor has gradually spread, and people come to him for treatment and advice, paying in produce. One piece of this section is a diary or daybook that Zhivago keeps for a short while, which is clearly a window into Pasternak's own views about art and about politics - much of which would have and did deeply trouble the Soviet officials who repressed this book (this on top of Pasternak's overall cynicism or harsh realism, take your pick, about the course of the Russian Revolution). Zhivago begins spending some time in the city - about a 3-hour horseback ride away - doing some library research, and lo whom does he behold but Lara, who in one of those Dickensian coincidences that happen in fiction but seldom in life, is living in this same city - and it also turns out that her (estranged) husband, once though dead in action, is now the commander who held and then released Z. at the train station. Z. begins regular visits to Lara, and their love affair begins - and he is torn by guilt. Just as he's pondering confessing all to the now-pregnant Tonya, he is waylaid by a military posse and impressed to be a military doctor serving in Siberia - and off he goes, as we enter another phase of his epic journey.