Yakov Pasinkov

Characters

• Yakov Ivanitch Pasinkov — the narrator’s friend, a civil servant, ‘the last of the romantics’: A penniless orphan from the boarding school, the kindest of souls; he loves Sophia in secret and dies of a wound got in Siberia.
• the narrator — Pasinkov’s schoolfellow and confidant: In love with Sophia, he reads her letter to Asanov on the sly and is ashamed of it ever after.
• Sophia Nikolaevna Zlotnitsky — the younger Zlotnitsky daughter: Sixteen, silent and strong-willed; she marries Asanov for love and years later lives by a sense of duty alone.
• Konstantin Alexandrovitch Asanov — a former officer, Sophia’s beloved: Handsome and self-assured, boastful of a grand uncle; he marries Sophia and later takes to drink and ruin.
• Varvara Nikolaevna — Sophia’s elder sister: The plump, listless girl at the window; in truth she loved Pasinkov, and for that never married.
• Elisei — Pasinkov’s servant: A Kalmuck, wild-looking and kind-hearted; ten years in Pasinkov’s service, he weeps at his deathbed.
• Masha — Maria Petrovna, a townswoman from Novgorod, Pasinkov’s friend: She keeps his affectionate letters; he taught her to read and called her the one person who loved him.
• Tatiana Vassilievna Zlotnitsky — mother of Sophia and Varvara: A consumptive woman who never leaves her sofa and fears her husband — and fears Sonia will repeat her sister’s fate.
• Zlotnitsky — the father of the family, a retired officer: Silent and morose; he reads only geographies, teases the parrot Popka, and will not forgive his eldest daughter.
• Lidia — Sophia’s daughter: A quick eight-year-old with a sharp little face who notices more than the grown-ups tell her.
• the district doctor — the doctor attending the dying Pasinkov: A huge, drowsy man who admits the patient will die and offers to try homoeopathy just in case.
• Winterkeller — the keeper of the Moscow boarding school: A good-natured German who kept the abandoned Yakov on out of charity, feeding and clothing him.