Nicolai Leontievitch Markovitch

Nicolai Leontievitch is the dreamy, ink-stained inventor of the Markovitch household, perched on a one-legged chair under a barred window, coaxing small explosions from his materials while his wife Vera manages the money, the rooms, and the guests. He is amiable, harmless, and utterly absorbed in another world — yet his eyes narrow to dull, lifeless spots, and his weakness has taught Vera a contempt she cannot forgive herself for. His experiments and his passivity set the household's strange, uneasy weather, and his marriage is the fault line along which the novel's early tensions run.