Second World War

The Second World War appears in the novel as a time of mass displacement, rendered through the precarious routes refugees followed in search of freedom in the Americas. Its significance lies not only in the scale of that flight but in the obstacles built into it: reaching safety required passage through multiple countries, access to transport and exit papers, and good fortune. The episode also provides a striking point of comparison with later escapes in the novel, though those take place in a different historical moment.

Refugee Routes Through Europe

The account describes Lisbon as the principal embarkation point for refugees leaving imprisoned Europe, but emphasizes that many could not reach it directly. Their circuitous route led from Paris to Marseille, across the Mediterranean to Oran, then by train, automobile, or on foot along the edge of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. From there, money, influence, or luck might secure an exit visa and passage to Lisbon, followed by departure for the New World.

The route makes escape a sequence of conditional steps rather than a single act of flight. Each leg depended on the possibility of reaching the next place, while the visa divided those able to continue from those who could not. For the latter, the journey stopped in Casablanca, where waiting itself becomes the defining condition: they wait, and wait again, while the possibility of onward passage remains uncertain.

The Story Within the Hotel

This account is presented in a scene involving Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and Osip Glebnikov. Osip praises the Count’s choice as exciting, and the Count tells him to be quiet because it is beginning. The wartime refugee narrative is thus encountered as a story being watched within the hotel, rather than as a direct account of the Count’s own wartime journey. Its embedded presentation keeps the historical flight distinct while allowing its images of borders, transit, and uncertain passage to resonate with the surrounding plot.

Later Escapes and the Problem of Passage

The novel gives that problem a later, separate form in the Count’s preparations to leave the hotel. He needs a Scandinavian traveler’s passport, but taking it too early could alert hotel management and the authorities, prompt staff interviews and room searches, and lead to guards at railway stations. He watches a Stockholm salesman leave on June 13 and an Oslo journalist depart on June 17, regretting that he did not act sooner. With only twenty-four hours to spare, two Finnish guests arrive at his table in the Boyarsky; because the passport is likely to be carried on the guest’s person, the Count concludes that he must enter their suite while they are still inside.

The eventual escape depends on disguises and a carefully chosen route. Investigators later report that a Finnish passport and currency have been stolen, followed by a raincoat and hat taken from an American journalist. A man wearing the journalist’s clothes is seen boarding the overnight train toward Helsinki. The clothes and a Finland guide, with its maps removed, are found at the Russian terminus in Vyborg; investigators infer that the Count got off there and crossed the border on foot, potentially avoiding the tight security at the railway crossing.

Sofia’s departure from Salle Pleyel offers a further, distinct example of route planning. She leaves through the rear exit barefoot, then uses a small map cut from a Baedeker and hidden in a cap to follow a red line toward the American Embassy in Paris. The Count has chosen a detour rather than the direct route: it should get her away from the concert hall quickly and let her disappear into the anonymity of the Champs-Élysées, while still leaving time to reach the embassy before her absence is noticed.

Historical Resonance

The wartime route through Casablanca and the later escapes are not the same event or the same historical circumstance. Read alongside one another, however, they show how movement is shaped by borders, documents, transport, and surveillance. In the wartime account, the exit visa and access to Lisbon determine who can continue; in the Count’s escape, the stolen passport, altered appearance, and foot crossing at Vyborg are attempts to evade those controls. Sofia’s map similarly turns a journey through Paris into a planned passage toward refuge. The novel’s wartime setting therefore gives a larger context for its recurring attention to escape, without collapsing the later characters’ journeys into the Second World War itself.