# The Faraway Bride — Character guide

> Key figures in The Faraway Bride by Stella Benson.

- [Seryozha](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/seryozha.md): Seryozha has come home to Manchuria with a wife, Tanya, and a feverish longing to crawl back into the egg of yesterday. He kicks stones, whistles flatly, and watches his dog splash in a toy river that mirrors the golden 
- [Wilfred Chew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/wilfred_chew.md): Wilfred carries one hundred and fifty yen on his conscience like a splinter of shell, and argues the Reverend Oswald Fawcett's ghost into approving it. His brain, Chinese-born and London-trained, seeks compromise: angels
- [Anna Semionovna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/anna_semionovna.md): Anna keeps house, plans curd cakes and the killing of chicks, and sits on the porch in the dust she claims is not for watching the road. Her presence is tempestuous, her words hardly ever kind, yet Old Sergei feels safe 
- [Old Sergei](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/old_sergei.md): Nineteen years of marriage have taught Old Sergei that humiliation is better than silence, and that Anna's petulant departures are a kind of company. He spreads small snares for a kind word and never catches one; still, 
- [Pavel Ostapenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/pavel_ostapenko.md): Pavel holds forth at his own table with staring rufous eyes, a gold-red beard working like a latch, and sweat among the auburn hairs on his breast. He praises his wonderful wife and pities friends with scolding, silk-sto
- [Tatiana Ostapenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/tatiana_ostapenko.md): Tatiana is Miss Ostapenko of Mi-san, near Seoul, a fortune and a beauty who has been betrothed seven times and married, some say, to a devil. Wilfred Chew finds her pure and icelike, a little like the late Queen Alexandr
- [Varvara Alexeievna Ostapenko](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/varvara_alexeievna_ostapenko.md): Varvara Alexeievna sits divided between resenting that her husband is drunk and resenting that guests might notice, her wifely pride demanding each Ostapenko be presented neatly fitted to her inelastic standard. Tall, me
- [Tanya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/tanya.md): Tanya whistles like a boy as she irons in the washing-shed, a thread of cool sound running through the hot, boxed-in garden. Her mother Varvara imagines her there, and the household orbits around her restless, unkind ene
- [Alexander Petrovitch Weber](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/alexander_petrovitch_weber.md): Alexander Petrovitch Weber speaks of Tatiana with a finality that colors how others see her, telling Seryozha in Chi-tao-kou that she is many times betrothed, perhaps married to a devil, not good for men. His judgments t
- [Mrs. Butters](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/mrs_butters.md): A minor but recurring character, likely a neighbor or acquaintance.
- [Katya](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/katya.md): A persistent young woman who speaks her mind in several scenes.
- [Mr. Isaev](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/mr_isaev.md): A figure of some authority or mystery, addressed with respect.
- [Tobit](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/tobit.md): A biblical or allegorical figure referenced in the narrative.
- [Raguel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/raguel.md): A minor character, possibly from a subplot or allusion.
- [Raphael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/raphael.md): A character or angelic figure appearing in a subplot.
- [Gabael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/gabael.md): A minor character from a subplot or biblical reference.
- [Sara](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/sara.md): A minor female character, possibly a relative or acquaintance.
- [Edna](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_faraway_bride_se/characters/edna.md): A minor female character with a brief appearance.

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