# The Counterfeiters — Character guide

> Key figures in The Counterfeiters by André Gide.

- [Bernard Profitendieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/bernard_profitendieu.md): Bernard burns with the desire to prove he is not merely the product of the respectable Profitendieu household, and his flight from home becomes an experiment in self-invention. He talks his way into serving as Edouard's 
- [Olivier Molinier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/olivier_molinier.md): Olivier is the sensitive, admiring boy whom Edouard loves from a distance and whom Passavant collects with compliments. His vanity and craving for approval pull him away from the people who genuinely care for him, and Ed
- [Edouard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/edouard.md): Edouard is uncle to Olivier, guardian-in-spirit to Bernard, and the diarist whose notebook gives the novel its shifting, self-aware texture. He is generous, curious, and maddeningly detached — he confesses his 'thirst' t
- [Laura Douviers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/laura_douviers.md): Laura arrives in Paris pregnant, penniless, and abandoned by the lover she followed there, and Edouard's quiet assistance becomes her lifeline. Her husband Douviers, an excellent if unremarkable man, will raise the child
- [Vincent Molinier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/vincent_molinier.md): Vincent has just finished his medical exams and is torn between science and the need to earn a living, a tension Passavant exploits by hiring him to attend his ailing father. He got Laura with child and left her without 
- [Robert de Passavant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/robert_de_passavant.md): Passavant moves through Parisian society with an epigram for every occasion and a secret reason for every friendship — including his sudden interest in Vincent, whom he hires to tend his invalid father. He flatters Olivi
- [Little Boris](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/boris.md): Boris trails after the angelic Bronja on the terrace, refusing walks and telescopes in the same breath, spinning nonsense syllables so no one can understand him. His lying is almost lyrical — a bid for attention, or for 
- [George Molinier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/george_molinier.md): George circulates false coins among schoolboys, half innocent tool, half willing delinquent, and the authorities decide to frighten him before he drags the case past the point of no return. His trouble forces Monsieur Pr
- [Strouvilhou](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/strouvilhou.md): When Passavant decides he has tired of Olivier, it is Strouvilhou he writes to, ready to hand over the review to a man whose usefulness outweighs his scruples. Nicknamed 'virtuous' with unmistakable irony, he moves throu
- [Armand Vedel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/armand_vedel.md): In the Vedel household, where family constraint breeds revolt, Armand cultivates a facile contempt for domestic virtue and watches Sarah's rebellions with an indulgence that feels like a trap. He dreads his own sarcasms 
- [Monsieur Profitendieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/profitendieu.md): Monsieur Profitendieu runs his household and his court with the same unbending sense of superiority, until Bernard's letter — announcing that he knows he is a bastard and is leaving — reduces him to stamping his foot and
- [Sarah Vedel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/sarah_vedel.md): Armand's sister, a free-spirited young woman.
- [Pauline](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/pauline.md): Olivier's mother, a caring but anxious figure.
- [Mme Sophroniska](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/sophroniska.md): A doctor who treats Boris at Saas-Fee.
- [Madame de La Pérouse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/madame_de_la_perouse.md): The elderly wife of Monsieur de La Pérouse.
- [Rachel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/rachel.md): A governess or teacher at the Vedel household.
- [Azaïs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/aza%C3%AFs.md): The elderly head of the Vedel pension.
- [Ghéridanisol](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/gheridanisol.md): A young man involved with the Passavant circle.
- [Monsieur de La Pérouse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/monsieur_de_la_perouse.md): An old music master, Edouard's acquaintance.
- [Lady Lilian](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/lilian_griffith.md): A wealthy Englishwoman involved with Vincent.
- [Phiphi](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/phiphi.md): A young boy at the Saas-Fee sanatorium.
- [Gontran de Passavant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/gontran_de_passavant.md): Passavant's younger brother.
- [Lucien Bercail](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/lucien_bercail.md): A schoolmate of Bernard and Olivier.
- [Dhurmer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/dhurmer.md): A jeweler involved in a counterfeiting scheme.
- [Little Bronja](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/bronja.md): A sickly child at the sanatorium, friend of Boris.
- [Madame Profitendieu](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/madame_profitendieu.md): Bernard's mother.
- [Felix Douviers](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/felix_douviers.md): Laura's husband.
- [Oscar Molinier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_counterfeiters_se/characters/oscar_molinier.md): Olivier's father, a magistrate.

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