# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Hjalmar Söderberg.

- [Unknown](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): He drifts through Stockholm with a gnawing sense that his days are empty and meaningless, and his memory works like a junk-room he sifts for clues. When he recognizes a minor actor on stage, the man's bitter intonations 
- [Bloom](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/bloom.md): Freshly out of prison, Bloom savors a morning of sunlight and open air before he must hunt for work and a cheap lodging. His past is a tangle of waning Baptist faith, a betrothal to the moneyed Tekla, and a ruinous affai
- [Frederick Richard Fant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/frederick_richard_fant.md): Fant measures his life in cigars and quiet humiliations, convinced his wife Ellen has grown cold since his friend John Richardt acquired a fur coat and a company. He splurges on a coat of his own, hoping to rekindle her 
- [Paul Herbst](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/paul_herbst.md): Herbst strolls homeward with a companion, discoursing on the freemasonry of those who have passed the line into resignation — visible in their walk, their carriage, the lines around the mouth. He finds a certain consolat
- [Dr. Henck](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/dr_henck.md): Henck comes home laden with parcels and a tender shoulder, his one consolation the fur coat he hopes will thaw his wife's recent coldness. She steals up to him in the dark hall and kisses him warmly, murmuring that Gusta
- [Mr. Fant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/mr_fant.md): A variant or separate reference to the Fant character, possibly the same person.
- [Wetzmann](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/wetzmann.md): Old Wetzmann has done well in life, drinks toddy at the tavern every evening, and endures a joyless house presided over by the former maidservant he married. His second wife, once ruled by Envy and Lust, now governs thro
- [Magda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/magda.md): Magda is the girl caught embracing the young invalid when his stepmother bursts in, and she is flung from the house with curses and threats. Her slender wrist in that iron grasp becomes the image the feverish young man c
- [Edith](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/edith.md): Edith moves through Dr. Henck's household as the barometer of his dwindling pride: cold when he is poor, tender when he comes home draped in fur. Her embrace in the dark hall, and the whispered name that slips out with i
- [Margot](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/margot.md): Margot lived with Herbst in the house with the left gable window, sewing by her mahogany board while sunlight patterned the wallpaper, and fell asleep on his shoulder at a New Year's service. Conscientious to the point o
- [Tom Gabel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/tom_gabel.md): A character appearing in one or more stories, possibly a working-class figure.
- [His Master](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/his_master.md): A master figure referenced in relation to a servant or dog.
- [Tekla](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/tekla.md): A female character with a handful of proper mentions.
- [Signy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/signy.md): Signy exists only in the narrator's murmured conversations, a private companion he created the way a German creates a camel, out of the depths of his own consciousness. When his parents pry and tease, he renames her Ida 
- [Martin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/martin.md): A named character with limited but distinct appearances.
- [Ida](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/ida.md): A female character appearing briefly in the collection.
- [Ellen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/ellen.md): A female character with pronoun-heavy mentions.
- [Papa](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/papa.md): A father figure mentioned in a story.
- [Miss Erika](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters/miss_erika.md): A minor female character with a single proper mention.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_29_se/characters