Character guide

Volodya Lovlev

major

Also known as VII, Volodya, VII Volodya, Lovlev, XX Volodya, XVI Volodya, V Volodya, XV Volodya, XIV Volodya

Volodya drifts through Sologub's stories as son, suitor, and self-appointed dreamer, measuring the world against fantasies it never quite satisfies. His charm lies in his sincerity; his trouble lies in how quickly that sincerity curdles into boredom, resentment, or a craving for something transcendent. He anchors the collection's recurring question of whether a young man can build a soul in a world that offers him only tedium and propriety.

Natasha Ozoreva

major

Also known as VIII Natasha, IX Natasha, LI Natasha, XLIV Natasha

Natasha moves through drawing rooms and family circles with an air of quiet superiority, aware of her power over the men who orbit her and stingy with any sign of need. Her tenderness, when it surfaces, is complicated by a streak of cruelty and a refusal to be possessed. She matters because the men around her define themselves by how she receives them, and her choices set the emotional weather of the stories she enters.

Mashenka Pestryakova

major

Also known as Lohengrin I Mashenka Pestryàkova, Lohengrin, the noble Lohengrin, dear Mashenka, III Mashenka, V Mashenka

Mashenka exists in Sologub's fiction as an object of near-religious devotion for the boys and men who idealize her, and as a person with her own shy longings underneath that worship. The tension is between the fairy-tale role others assign her and the ordinary, vulnerable girl who must actually live inside it. Her fate shapes the moral center of the stories she appears in, testing whether tenderness can survive contact with adult desire and disappointment.

Grisha Igumnov

major

Also known as Grisha, Igumnov

Grisha navigates the hierarchies of provincial boyhood — brothers, schoolmates, adults who misunderstand him — with a mixture of bravado and secret hurt. His defining tension is between wanting to be loved and refusing to soften enough to earn it, which turns small humiliations into private dramas. He matters because his bruised perspective gives the collection some of its sharpest glimpses of how cruelty is learned young.

Yakov Alexeyevitch Saranin

major

Also known as Yakov Alexeyevitch, Saranin, VIII And Saranin, Mr. Saranin

Saranin occupies the role of father, employer, or respected neighbor — the kind of figure whose authority is assumed rather than argued. His flaw is a cold vanity that mistakes its own comfort for virtue, and his relationships are marked by a quiet need to dominate. He matters because Sologub uses him to expose how much violence can hide inside ordinary domesticity and civic respectability.

Peter Antònovitch Bulanin

major

Also known as Turandina I Peter Antònovitch Bulanin, Bulanin, Peter, Turandina

Bulanin moves through courtship and family expectation with the anxious intensity of someone who wants to be admired for his soul rather than his prospects. His central tension is between romantic self-dramatization and a genuine, clumsy capacity for love that keeps tripping over his own pride. He matters because his wavering gives the collection one of its most sympathetic studies of how a decent man can talk himself into and out of happiness.

Grishka

major

Also known as III Grishka, little Grishka, IV Grishka, poor Grishka

Grishka moves through Sologub's stories as a child whose imagination refuses the dull pieties of home, school, and church. His hunger for sweets, mischief, and forbidden knowledge collides with the adults who want him docile, and his small rebellions expose how thin their authority really is. He matters because his skewed, vivid perspective turns the ordinary into something stranger and sadder, setting the tone for the collection's quiet unease.

Nadezhda Alexevna

major

Nadezhda Alexevna occupies the drawing rooms and quiet corridors where respectable women are supposed to be decorative and content. Her restlessness and sharp self-awareness put her at odds with the roles imposed on her, and the men and women around her rarely guess how much she notices. She anchors the collection's middle stretch by showing how private longing can corrode a life that looks, from outside, entirely settled.

Esper Constantinovich Saksaoolov

supporting

Also known as Saksaoolov, III Saksaoolov, IV Saksaoolov

Saksaoolov drifts through Sologub's social scenes as an eccentric intellectual whose conversation is both seductive and faintly menacing. He craves an audience for his ideas, and his need to be the most interesting person present makes him alternately charming and tiresome. His presence matters because he embodies the collection's fascination with people who mistake their own elaborate self-justifications for wisdom.

Sonpolyev

supporting

Sonpolyev turns up in drawing rooms, dinners, and chance encounters where his mild manners let him observe without being observed. He wants to be taken seriously, and his vanity is the kind that dresses itself as detachment. He matters to the early and middle stories because his presence sharpens the social texture, giving readers a cool surface against which other characters' passions look all the more exposed.

Mr. Sergei Matveyevich Moshkin

supporting

Also known as Moshkin, Hunger Sergei Matveyevich Moshkin

Moshkin appears in Sologub's stories as a figure of appetite and mild humiliation, always aware of where he stands in the room. His nickname 'Hunger' clings to him because his wanting is so visible, and his attempts to be dignified while needy make him both comic and painful. He matters because his small dramas of insufficiency dramatize the collection's recurring theme: the gap between what people are given and what they ache for.

Elena Kirillovna

supporting

Also known as XI Elena Kirillovna, Elena Kirillovna Vodolenskaya

Elena Kirillovna moves through several stories as a wife, a beloved, or a woman on the edge of both, always negotiating the terms men set for her. Her desires are real but rarely simple, and her attempts to reconcile them with duty produce the quiet friction that drives her scenes. She matters because her predicaments give the collection its most intimate view of how love, boredom, and self-deception braid together in ordinary lives.

Glasha

supporting

Also known as XIV Glasha, XV Glasha

Glasha moves through households as a maid, a witness, a pair of hands — rarely the center of attention, always somehow present when attention turns cruel or strange. Her position makes her both invisible and indispensable, which is precisely the kind of vantage Sologub prizes: the servant who sees what the family will not admit. In the early and middle stretches of these stories, she anchors the domestic world that the more theatrical characters strain against.

Elèna Nikolàevna

supporting

Also known as Elèna

Elèna Nikolàevna occupies drawing rooms and family scenes with a formality that marks her as both dignified and slightly out of step with the people around her. Her archaic pronouns and measured phrasing suggest someone clinging to a code of manners that others have quietly abandoned. That friction — between her insistence on form and the loosening world around her — gives her scenes their particular ache, and it is in that gap that Sologub finds his material.

Sofia Alexandrovna Ozoreva

supporting

Also known as Sofia Alexandrovna, Ozoreva, LII Sofia Alexandrovna, XLVII Sofia Alexandrovna, LIII Sofia Alexandrovna

Sofia Alexandrovna presides over domestic life with the particular gravity of a Russian matriarch — managing daughters, sons, and the unspoken rules that hold a family in its shape. Her recurring appearances across stories give her the feel of a type Sologub returns to: the woman whose love and control are difficult to separate. In the early and middle arcs, she is often the force against which younger characters define themselves, whether by obedience or by quiet refusal.

Lelechka

supporting

Also known as III The samovar, III Lelechka, VII Lelechka, V Lelechka

Lelechka is a girl — sometimes a very young one — whose days unfold among adults who are distracted, tired, or absorbed in their own dramas. The recurring samovar in her scenes is telling: she is often near the warm, domestic objects of a household without being fully held by the people in it. Her vulnerability and her watchfulness make her one of Sologub's most affecting figures, and her early appearances set the emotional register for the stories she inhabits.

Serafima Alexandrovna

supporting

Serafima Alexandrovna appears across Sologub's short fiction as a figure whose circumstances — marriage, family, the slow pressure of routine — shape her moods and decisions. She is not a heroine of grand gestures but of small ones: a hesitation, a resentment, a moment of unexpected tenderness. Her consistency across stories makes her a useful anchor for readers entering Sologub's world, since her concerns are recognizably human even when the atmosphere around her turns strange.

Gurof

supporting

Gurof moves through his scenes as an observer — someone whose gaze lingers on details, on other people's faces, on the small evidence of their inner lives. Whether he is a narrator, a guest, or a man quietly unraveling, his habit of watching rather than acting gives his stories their distinctive pressure. In the early and middle arcs, he is the figure through whom Sologub filters perception itself, and that makes him central even when he seems to be standing at the edge.

Shura Dolinin

supporting

Also known as Shura

Shura moves through a world of schoolrooms, family rooms, and long dull afternoons where something uncanny always seems about to surface. His youth makes him porous to moods adults dismiss, and his curiosity pulls him toward thresholds he should perhaps leave alone. He anchors the early arc by giving the strange a pair of ordinary eyes to enter through.

Aglaya Nikiforovna

supporting

Also known as Aglaya

Aglaya Nikiforovna belongs to the cramped society of households and dependents where everyone knows everyone's business and no one says it aloud. Her authority over younger charges and her need for recognition create a tension between duty and private hunger. She matters because her small cruelties and sudden tendernesses set the moral weather of the stories she enters.

Borya

supporting

Also known as X Borya, Boris, Boryushka

Borya drifts through the adult world of Sologub's stories as a small, sensitive observer whose inner life is far richer than anyone around him suspects. He craves tenderness but recoils from the humiliations that come with it, and his loneliness sharpens into something stranger. His vulnerability makes him the emotional center of the early arc, the place where the ordinary and the uncanny meet.

Alexandra Ivanovna

supporting

Alexandra Ivanovna presides over kitchens, corridors, and the small rituals that keep a Russian household legible to itself. Her practicality is genuine, but so is the fatigue beneath it, and Sologub lets us feel how much she suppresses to keep the peace. She matters because her ordinary endurance throws the stories' stranger currents into relief.

Agnes Rudolfovna

supporting

Also known as Agnes, VII Agnes, dear Agnes

Agnes Rudolfovna stands slightly apart from the Russian households around her, her otherness both alluring and unsettling to those who watch her. She is desired, but her own desires remain guarded, and the gap between what she seems and what she wants generates quiet friction. She matters because she turns ordinary courtship into something closer to obsession, exposing the darker currents beneath polite attention.

Andrew Pavlovitch Kragaef

supporting

Also known as Kragaef, Andrew Pavlovitch, тАЭ Kragaef

Andrew Pavlovitch Kragaef moves through drawing rooms and offices with the assurance of a man who believes he has earned his place. His vanity and his hunger for admiration make him easy to wound, and Sologub shows us the petty retaliations that follow. He matters because his ordinary egotism becomes a lens for the stories' recurring question: what happens when a man's inner life fails to match his outward pose.

Young Zakkir

supporting

Also known as Zakkir

Zakkir moves through a world of schoolmasters, servants, and petty hierarchies where children absorb the violence adults pretend not to notice. His youth makes him both vulnerable and dangerously impressionable, and the small betrayals he witnesses or commits begin to shape the man he might become. He matters because Sologub uses him to show how ordinary corruption takes root early, long before anyone calls it by name.

Princess Tamara Timofeevna Turandon

supporting

Also known as Tamar, Tamara, Tamara Timofeevna, Turandon

Tamara Timofeevna moves through salons and country estates where marriage is strategy and every compliment hides a calculation. Her pride and her appetite for something real pull against the role she was raised to play, and the men around her mistake her composure for consent. She anchors the romantic and social intrigues of the early stories, exposing how little freedom even a titled woman truly owns.

Marya Constantìnovna

minor

A female character with limited but recurring appearances.

Fedosya

minor

Also known as II Nurse Fedosya

A nurse or servant character appearing in domestic scenes.

Doctor Bernard Horn

minor

Also known as Doctor Horn, Bernard, dear Bernard, Doctor Bernard Horn, Bernard Horn⁠—he

A doctor character appearing in medical or social contexts.

Sergei Modestovich

minor

Also known as VIII Sergei Modestovich

A minor character appearing in a specific story arc.

Tanechka

minor

A diminutive female character, possibly a child or young woman.

Mikhail Lvovich

minor

Also known as The tall , broad - chested Mikhail Lvovich, Mikhail

A tall, broad-chested male character with limited appearances.

Sin

minor

An allegorical or symbolic character representing sin.

Eugenia Stepanovna

minor

A female character with narrative presence, possibly a relative.

Serezha

minor

Also known as schoolboy Serezha, little Serezha, little Serezha who had shot himself

A schoolboy who tragically shot himself, appearing in a story.

Stepanida

minor

Also known as the babushka Stepanida, Babushka Stepanida, Babushka

An elderly grandmother figure, often called Babushka.

Lin

minor

Also known as little Lin, But beautiful Lin

A beautiful young character, possibly a child or exotic figure.

Edward Henriovitch Roggenfeldt

minor

Also known as Edward, Edward Roggenfeldt, Professor Roggenfeldt

A professor or academic character appearing in intellectual contexts.

The Beast

minor

Also known as The Herald of the Beast

An allegorical or monstrous figure appearing in a story.

Timaride

minor

A minor character with a unique name, possibly exotic.

Valeria Mikhailovna

minor

Also known as Valeria

A female character with limited appearances.

Little Paul

minor

Also known as Paul

A young boy character appearing in a story.

Praskovya Petrovna

minor

Also known as Praskovya

A female character with limited appearances.

Mamma

minor

A mother figure appearing in domestic scenes.

Anushka

minor

Also known as II Anushka

A female servant or young woman.

Sarroo

minor

A minor character with an unusual name.

Captive Death

minor

Also known as Death

An allegorical figure representing death captured.

Lesha Semiboyarinov

minor

Also known as dear Lesha, VII Lesha

A young male character, possibly a relative.

Papa

minor

A father figure appearing in domestic scenes.

Strigal and Co.

minor

Also known as Strigal, Co.

A business or company mentioned in a story.

White Mother Easter

minor

Also known as Mother, The White Mother I Easter, Easter, White mamma

An allegorical or religious figure representing Easter.

The Armenian

minor

Also known as the cursed Armenian, Cursed Armenian

A minor character referred to by ethnicity.

Mairure

minor

A character or place name appearing in a story title.

Aphrodite

minor

Also known as the Aphrodite

The Greek goddess appearing in a mythological reference.

King Turandon

minor

A king character, possibly in a fairy tale.

Souls Garmonov

minor

Also known as Garmonov

A minor character with a distinctive name, possibly a merchant or official.

Aristomakh

minor

A minor character with a classical-sounding name, possibly a philosopher.

Kurkov

minor

A minor male character with limited appearances.

Maximilian

minor

A minor male character with a European name.

Aleksei Stepanovich Semiboyarinov

minor

Also known as Aleksei Stepanovich, Semiboyarinov

A minor character with a distinctive surname, possibly a noble.

Centurion Marcellus

minor

Also known as the Centurion, Marcellus, Centurion, The Centurion, the old Centurion

A Roman centurion appearing in a historical or biblical story.

Mishka

minor

A minor male character, possibly a servant or child.

Lucillus

minor

Also known as Young Lucillus, Lucillus thereupon

A young Roman or classical character.

Barinya

minor

Also known as matushka barinya

A mistress or lady of the house, often addressed as Barinya.

Fedota

minor

A minor male character.

Lydochka Semiboyarinov

minor

Also known as Lydochka, The blue - eyed Lydochka

A blue-eyed young woman, possibly a love interest.

Mitya Krinin

minor

Also known as Mitya, Krinin

A minor male character.

Madame Omejina

minor

Also known as Omejina

A minor female character, possibly a socialite.

Agathya

minor

A minor female character.

Madame Engelhardova

minor

Also known as Engelhardova

A minor female character.

Madame Roggenfeldt

minor

A minor female character, possibly related to Professor Roggenfeldt.

Gaspar

minor

A minor male character.

Nadia

minor

Also known as Auntie Nadia, Auntie

An aunt figure appearing in family scenes.

Khalatyantz

minor

A minor character with an Armenian-sounding surname.

Sima

minor

A minor character, possibly a diminutive of Serafima.

Dutikov

minor

A minor male character.

Student Epiphanov

minor

Also known as IV Student Epiphanov, Epiphanov

A student character appearing in a story.

Sasha

minor

Also known as The Affectionate Boy Sasha

An affectionate boy character.

Marusya Lareyeva

minor

Also known as Marusya

A minor female character.

Mamochka

minor

A diminutive term for mother, used as a character.

Elsa

minor

Also known as Lady Elsa

A lady character, possibly in a medieval or romantic story.