Poor Folk · Chapter
June 1st: My Beloved Makar Alexievitch explained
Barbara sends Makar a manuscript detailing her past life, including her mother, Pokrovski, Anna Thedorovna, and her misfortunes, as a gift to repay his care and love.
What happens
Barbara sends Makar a manuscript detailing her past life, including her mother, Pokrovski, Anna Thedorovna, and her misfortunes, as a gift to repay his care and love. She expresses weariness and suffering from insomnia.
Free preview opens on this chapter — companions, themes, and character notes appear beside the text.
Narrative arc
Story tension across the book — this chapter sits in Exposition.
- Setup
- Escalation
- Breaking point
- Aftermath
- Closing
This is the story's dramatic climax because it marks the emotional and psychological peak where Varvara’s desp…
Full beat labels and climax notes unlock in the reader.
Follow the arc while readingThemes in this chapter
- Memory and Nostalgia
Barbara revisits her past through the manuscript, feeling aged and weary as she reflects on happier times.
- Love and Sacrifice
Barbara offers the manuscript as a token of gratitude for Makar's ceaseless care and love.
Characters to notice
- Barbara Alexievna Dobroselova
Author of the letter and manuscript, expressing her desire to please Makar and her current suffering from insomnia.
- Makar Alexievitch Dievushkin
Recipient of the manuscript, whose care and love Barbara seeks to repay.
- Pokrovski
Mentioned as a figure from Barbara's past life recorded in the manuscript.
- Anna Thedorovna
Mentioned as part of Barbara's earlier experiences.
Key passages
“So eager am I to do something that will please and divert you in return for your care, for your ceaseless efforts on my behalf—in short, for your love for me—that I have decided to beguile a leisure hour for you by delving into my locker, and extracting thence the manuscript which I send you herewith.”
I want so much to repay your constant care and love that I've decided to send you a manuscript from my locker to entertain you.
Barbara explains her motivation for sharing her personal manuscript.
“Yet somehow I feel depressed when I read it, for I seem now to have grown twice as old as I was when I penned its concluding lines.”
Reading it makes me sad, as if I've aged twice as much since I finished writing it.
Barbara reflects on the emotional toll of revisiting her past.
