Zhivago's final journey and death

Yurii Andreievich’s final journey takes him toward a new job at the Botkin Hospital, but ends with his death on a Moscow street. The failed trolley, his effort to escape its crowded interior, and the bystanders’ uncertain response make his last moments a public event; the passage’s final contrast is with Mademoiselle Fleury, who walks on unaware that she has survived him.

The journey to the hospital

At the end of August, Yurii Andreievich boards a trolley at a corner of Gazetny Street. It travels up Nikita Street toward the Kudrinskaia terminal, carrying him toward his first day at work at the Botkin Hospital, then known as the Soldatenko Hospital. He had visited only once or twice before for work-related reasons. The trip is therefore both routine in form and a beginning: he is heading to a new post, not setting out with any stated expectation of a final journey.

The trolley repeatedly breaks down. Its passage is obstructed by a cart caught in the rail grooves, and faults in the insulation interrupt the current. The driver gets down with a wrench and works on the machinery. These delays hold the passengers in place and make the ordinary commute feel extended, though the account gives no indication that the mechanical faults cause Yurii Andreievich’s death. They shape the circumstances in which his crisis unfolds rather than explain it.

The crisis in the crowded car

As the trolley stops and starts, Yurii Andreievich attempts to open a window. He is overcome by nausea and weakness, and cannot move the window, which is fastened with screws. Other passengers call this out to him, but he does not register either their words or what they mean. His attempts to force the window continue amid a panic that has overtaken his awareness of the people around him.

A sharp pain makes him understand that something irreparable has happened and that he is dying. The trolley moves again, then stops after traveling only a short way down Presnia. This brief motion does not resolve his crisis; it instead brings the scene to another standstill, with Yurii Andreievich still inside the crowded vehicle and struggling to get out.

The attempt to leave

Summoning what the narration describes as a superhuman effort of will, Yurii Andreievich pushes down the center passage. Passengers block his way and respond angrily as he struggles through them. When he reaches the rear platform, the fresh air seems to revive him for a moment. He entertains the possibility that he may recover, but the reprieve proves short-lived.

He continues through the crush on the platform, meeting more kicks and abuse, then steps down from the stationary trolley into the street. He takes three steps and collapses on the paving. He does not get up again. The sequence marks the effort and limited choice available to him: he tries first to open a window, then to reach the outside, and briefly mistakes the relief of fresh air for improvement. Neither attempt changes the outcome.

Death and the bystanders

People leave the trolley and gather around Yurii Andreievich. Talk and disagreement follow over what should be done: some favor taking him to the hospital in the trolley, while others call for the police. The people present soon determine that he is not breathing and that his heart has stopped. The account thus confirms his death in the street, rather than leaving his collapse as an unresolved emergency.

The crowd includes people relieved that the dead man was not run over and disappointed that the death had nothing to do with the trolley. Their reactions make the scene more than a simple interruption to public transport: they reveal how quickly attention divides into speculation, practical proposals, and private response. Yet no one in the account can undo the decisive fact established around the body. The proposed trip to the hospital comes after his death has already been recognized.

Mademoiselle Fleury and the parallel journey

A woman in lilac also approaches the gathering, looks at the body, and listens to the discussion before going on. She is Mademoiselle Fleury, a Swiss national, formerly from Meliuzeievo, and now very old. For twelve years she has been asking the Moscow authorities for permission to return to her native country; her application has recently been granted. She is in Moscow to collect her exit visa from her embassy, carrying her documents in a ribbon-tied bundle and fanning herself with them as she walks.

Fleury has repeatedly overtaken the stalled trolley, and she does so again without knowing that she has overtaken Yurii Andreievich and survived him. The juxtaposition turns two journeys moving through the same city into sharply different outcomes: her long-delayed return home is now possible, while his ordinary trip to work ends before he reaches the hospital. Their paths cross only briefly, and Fleury leaves without learning what becomes of the body. The episode closes not with an explanation of death but with the enduring difference between the lives that pass one another and the knowledge each carries away.