# Anna — Short Fiction character guide

> Anna in Short Fiction by Vladimir Korolenko.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Anna Michàilovna, the beautiful Anna

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

## Snapshot

The beautiful Anna Michàilovna moves through the students' world with a poise that makes the narrator both love and fear her.

## Who they are

Anna Michàilovna is the woman at the centre of the narrator's emotional life, the one whose presence turns a snowy villa into a place of both memory and dread. She is connected to the General's household and to the student circles whose tone is shifting from noisy enthusiasm to something more serious and defined. The narrator stands at a fence between the General's dead, boarded-up villa and the lighted windows where she is, unable to enter and unable to leave. Her beauty and her distance give the story its ache of unrequited, self-aware longing.

## Relationships

### [Uncle Maxim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/characters/uncle_maxim)

_family_

Anna is likely a relative (perhaps sister or sister-in-law) of Uncle Maxim, with a caring familial tie.

### [Uncle Maxim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/characters/uncle_maxim)

_family_

Anna is likely a relative (perhaps sister or sister-in-law) of Uncle Maxim, with a caring familial tie.

## In the story

### [VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/vi)

The mother who feels jealousy over her son's attachment to Joachim's music and decides to order a piano to rekindle her own musical studies.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/iii)

Attempts to explain color differences to Petrùsya using musical notes, showing both excitement and sadness; later yields to Maxim's reasoning.

### [V: Love](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/v-love)

Anna Michàilovna observes Evelyn's reaction to Peter's playing.

### [V](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/v)

Anna Michàilovna responds tearfully to Maxim, worried about what will become of her boy.

### [VIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/viii)

Anna Michàilovna looks inquiringly at Evelyn during the performance.

### [VI: The Crisis—An Attempt at Synthesis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/chapters/vi-the-crisis-an-attempt-at-synthesis)

Peter's mother, who witnesses his restless sleep and the return of his childhood fevers, fearing for his health.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/characters/anna
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_54_se/characters