# Short Fiction — Character guide

> Key figures in Short Fiction by Vsevolod Garshin.

- [Nadejda Nicolaievna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/nadejda_nicolaievna.md): Nadejda Nicolaievna moves through the artist's studio and the city's haunts as a woman already sliding toward ruin, drinking behind empty bottles while old acquaintances watch helplessly. Her refusal of Bezsonow's tender
- [Vassili Petrovich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/vassili_petrovich.md): Vassili Petrovich sits on a bench facing the sea, calculating lodgings, board, and tobacco, and imagining himself an old grey-haired teacher visited by famous former scholars. His self-deprecating realism — 'You haven't 
- [Bezsonow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/bezsonow.md): Bezsonow moves between the artist's studio and the disreputable crowd around Nadejda Nicolaievna, speaking with a new and strange tenderness one moment and ordering her home the next. His eloquence on politics and foreig
- [Nikita Ivanoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/nikita_ivanoff.md): Nikita leaves his village wrapped in sheepskin, staring at the snow as if searching for something forgotten, while his wife Praskovia collapses and the women wail for a week. In the regiment he proves hopeless at drill b
- [Alexei Petrovich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/alexei_petrovich.md): Alexei Petrovich writes and abandons a letter to Peter Nicolaivich, sends Dunyasha for water, and steals the revolver from its holster above the sofa with the deftness of long deliberation. Alone, he mocks himself for ap
- [Captain Ventzel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/ventzel.md): Captain Ventzel sits sipping tea laced with rum in Zaikin's tent, bowing courteously to a student and asking questions with thin-lipped precision while the other officers joke and splutter around him. The soldiers' uncom
- [Helfreich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/helfreich.md): Helfreich moves through the studio world as Lopatin's confidant, the one who first knows Nadia and never quite explains why he kept her from his friend. He watches Lopatin's growing entanglement with a mixture of concern
- [Kuzma Thomich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/kuzma_thomich.md): Kuzma Thomich hovers at the edge of the narrator's world, obedient to the point of blushing when given an order, fussing over a looking-glass and the light. His eagerness to please sits oddly against the larger indiffere
- [Simon Ivanoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/simon_ivanoff.md): Simon Ivanoff knows the type he is dealing with the moment he sees her, and he grabs her shoulder with the blunt authority of a man protecting his own billet. He is not cruel so much as practical, a figure of the margins
- [Ivan Ivanovich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/ivan_ivanovich.md): Ivan Ivanovich Nikitin begins as the timid man who can barely put out his hand, then swells into the drunk who bursts into Evgenia's rooms with his hat askew and his eyes blazing. He loves Nadia with a helplessness that 
- [Alexander Michailovich Stebelkoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/alexander_michailovich_stebelkoff.md): Stebelkoff is the artist who will not settle for thirty or three hundred pictures, only the one he can see whole: the cave, the wax candle, the peasant hands trembling over the Gospel. He narrates Ilia's dilemma with suc
- [Simon Ivanovich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/simon_ivanovich.md): A character distinct from Simon Ivanoff, possibly a different person.
- [Sonia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/sonia.md): A female character with limited but notable appearances.
- [Senichka](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/senichka.md): An older character, possibly a servant or relative.
- [Jitkoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/jitkoff.md): A character referred to as uncle, with a minor role.
- [Mary Petrovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/mary_petrovna.md): A female character appearing in the narrative.
- [Ivan Platonich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/ivan_platonich.md): A named character with a small role.
- [Serge Vassilivich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/serge_vassilivich.md): A character who appears briefly.
- [Kudriasheff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/kudriasheff.md): A provincial secretary with a minor role.
- [Attalea](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/attalea.md): Attalea Princeps towers over the greenhouse, magnificent and restless, convinced that the grey sky and cold rain outside must be better than the warm captivity she knows. She grows taller and taller, stripping her own ro
- [Agatha Alexeievna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/agatha_alexeievna.md): A female character with a minor presence.
- [Andrei Nicolaievich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/andrei_nicolaievich.md): A character appearing in the story.
- [Mr. Lopatin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/mr_lopatin.md): A character with a minor role, possibly a visitor.
- [Vladimir Mikhailich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/mikhailich.md): A character with a few appearances.
- [Feodoroff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/feodoroff.md): A talkative character with a minor role.
- [Masha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/masha.md): A servant or young woman with limited appearances.
- [Anna Ivanovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/anna_ivanovna.md): A female character with a small part.
- [Ivan Nicolaievitch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/ivan_nicolaievitch.md): A named character with limited presence.
- [Charlotte Corday](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/charlotte_corday.md): A historical figure referenced but not a character.
- [Captain Zaikin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/captain_zaikin.md): A military officer with a minor role.
- [Ivan Nikitin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/ivan_nikitin.md): A character with a minor role.
- [Vassili Karpich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/vassili_karpich.md): A character with a minor role.
- [Andrei Nicolaievich](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/andrei_nicolaievich_dot.md): A character with a minor role, possibly duplicate.
- [Mr. Ivanoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/mr_ivanoff.md): A character with a minor role.
- [Major F.](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/major_f.md): A military officer with a minor role.
- [Sophy Michailovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/sophy_michailovna.md): A character with a minor role.
- [The Frog](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters/the_frog.md): She lives quietly under a log, mindful of frogly dignity and the rule against croaking out of season, until a flock of southbound ducks lands in her swamp and fills her head with talk of warm waters and clouds of midges.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_56_se/characters