Karakterler

Arkady Ivanovich Nefedevich

He is Vasya's closest friend and roommate in the story A Weak Heart. Compared to Vasya, he is much more rational, realistic, and grounded. He is also a civil servant, but not obsessed like Vasya. When his friend drifts into madness, he mobilizes all his resources and compassion to save him. He is much more familiar with St. Petersburg society and its rules.

Astafy Ivanovich

He is the narrator of the story An Honest Thief. He is an honest former soldier and currently an honorable tailor. He is a meticulous and principled old man who attaches great importance to social morality, honesty, and order. He opens his home to a miserable drunkard like Yemelyan and tries to play the father figure to him for years. He experiences deep pain when Yemelyan steals from him, but forgives him in the end.

The Dreamer

A 26-year-old young, nameless man living in St. Petersburg. He has become completely isolated from society, adopting the city, buildings, and streets as his human companions. Despite being in the city for eight years, he knows no one. Meeting Nastenka on the banks of the Fontanka one evening creates a revolution in his abstract life. He falls in love with her. He escapes the freezing reality of existence to live out the novels in his head, but when Nastenka leaves him, he returns to that isolated life again; the only difference is that he has now tasted genuine happiness, if only for a moment.

Ivan Andreyevich

The tragicomic protagonist of the stories Another Man's Wife and A Husband Under the Bed. Despite being 'respectable' and 'holding office' in social life, he engages in ridiculously scandalous acts due to the suspicion that he is being cheated on by his wife. When he finds himself in someone else's apartment, under the bed of a total stranger, he becomes more concerned with surviving and avoiding disgrace than with his pride.

Nastenka

A 17-year-old girl representing innocence and loneliness. She is forced to live disconnected from the outer world by being tethered to her blind grandmother via a needle. However, she falls passionately in love with a young lodger who comes to the house. During the year-long absence of the lodger, she shares the spiritual pain she experiences with the Dreamer. In her heart, she carries both the anger toward her fiancé's unfaithfulness and the loyalty she feels for the Dreamer. In the end, she bows to the realistic and rule-bound structure of Petersburg and returns to a 'real' relationship.

Vasya Shumkov

He is the miserable hero of the story A Faint Heart. He is a very well-intentioned, hard-working, lower-level clerk with a talent for beautiful penmanship. He loses his mind after considering it a great favor that Yuliyan Mastakovich grants him a salary and security. When he suddenly falls in love and gets engaged, his gratitude toward his superior combined with the fear of disappointing him creates a guilt complex; he goes mad over a document he couldn't finish on time, falling into a paranoia that he will be drafted into the army or thrown into prison.

Yemelyan Ilyich (Yemelya)

He is the troublesome, alcoholic, yet pure-hearted tramp from The Honest Thief. After the official who hosted him passes away, he latches onto Astafiy Ivanovich. He never finds work and gives everything he has to drink, but he is very gentle. In the end, he steals and sells the leggings that Astafiy was going to sew and sell; the shame of this eats him up so much that he dies in a corner from grief and illness.