Matvey

Art

The church beadle; a fine-looking old man in a new sheepskin and high felt boots, patient and mild, who endures Seryozhka's abuse while doing the heavy labor of breaking ice and preparing materials.

The Requiem

The verger who sets up the memorial table and assists during the requiem.

Peasant Wives

The traveler and narrator, a tradesman who adopted the orphan Kuzka after a complicated affair with Mashenka.

The Murder

The perspiring Matvey, a mild-mannered man who becomes the perpetrator of a brutal murder.

I

Matvey Terehov, a middle-aged man with poor health, sings tenor at the station service and later laments his unhappy home life with his cousin.

Chapter II

Narrates his spiritual fall and redemption, from extreme fasting and self-imposed penance to being rebuked by Osip Varlamitch.

III

Yakov's cousin, recently returned from a tile factory, who disrupts the household by questioning Yakov's religious practices and moral choices.

IV

Matvey, sick and seeking a share of the common property, is denied by Yakov; he is also haunted by his past relationship with a factory woman.

V

Yakov's cousin, who is attacked and killed after a dispute over eating oil during Lent.

VI

The murdered uncle; his body is hidden in the kitchen and later transported to the forest of Limarovo.

IV

Not present in this chapter.