# Nicolai Leontievitch Markovitch — The Secret City character guide

> Nicolai Leontievitch Markovitch in The Secret City by Hugh Walpole.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Markovitch, Nicolai Leontievitch, Madame Markovitch, young Markovitch

**First appearance:** 0006-iii

## Snapshot

A half-hearted magician of failed inventions, he broods over bottles in a boxlike room while his wife runs the flat and quietly despises him.

## Who they are

Nicolai Leontievitch is the dreamy, ink-stained inventor of the Markovitch household, perched on a one-legged chair under a barred window, coaxing small explosions from his materials while his wife Vera manages the money, the rooms, and the guests. He is amiable, harmless, and utterly absorbed in another world — yet his eyes narrow to dull, lifeless spots, and his weakness has taught Vera a contempt she cannot forgive herself for. His experiments and his passivity set the household's strange, uneasy weather, and his marriage is the fault line along which the novel's early tensions run.

## In the story

### [Markovitch's Confidences](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_city_se/chapters/x)

Visits the narrator frequently, sharing his life story, ambitions, and despair; speaks of his love for Vera and his frustration with his own lack of resolution.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_city_se/chapters/vii)

Visits Ivan, is drunk and miserable, speaks of his fears and Semyonov's influence.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_city_se/characters/nicolai_leontievitch_markovitch
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_city_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_secret_city_se/characters