# Aglaya Nikiforovna — Short Fiction character guide

> Aglaya Nikiforovna in Short Fiction by Fyodor Sologub.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Aglaya

**First appearance:** 0001-short-fiction

## Snapshot

A watchful woman whose composed surface and measured speech conceal appetites and resentments that Sologub lets leak out in small, chilling gestures.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/i)

Saranin's tall, corpulent wife of placid temper; her size is the source of his anxiety and the subject of derisive remarks.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/iii)

Aglaya complains of a headache, is persuaded to take the medicine, but cleverly switches glasses with Saranin.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/vii)

She waxes merry at her husband's expense during lunch and later introduces her parents to the shrunken Saranin.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/vii)

A big, stout, bull-necked man who tries to be tactful and changes the subject to the Japanese.

### [VII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/vii)

A lean, malicious woman who berates Saranin for shrinking and blames her daughter's marriage.

### [VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/viii)

Alternates between mocking and crying over Saranin's condition; attempts to enroll him in school but is refused by the headmaster.

### [IX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/ix)

Receives the Strigal representative and forces her husband Saranin into the advertisement deal.

### [X](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/x)

Saranin's wife, now wealthy and merry, visits him and feeds him from her hand like a bird.

### [XI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/chapters/xi)

Aglaya is among those perplexed by Saranin's disappearance.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/characters/aglaya_nikiforovna
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_20_se/characters