figure

Kleopatra Alexeyevna Poloznev

Kleopatra

also: Cleopatra, Kleopatra Alexeyevna

Misail's older sister (twenty-six at the story's start), long dominated by their father and resigned to keeping his house. Falls in love with the married Dr. Vladimir Blagovo, becomes pregnant out of wedlock, is publicly disgraced at a rehearsal at the Azhogins', and moves in with Misail; dies giving birth to a daughter whom Misail raises.

Reading notes

My Life: A Provincial's Story §509 ``Cleopatra of Egypt.''
A cruel pun on Kleopatra's given name (chosen by her father, section 29, alongside "Misail" for his son, out of the same self-important classicizing taste that shapes his architecture): overdressed and out of place at the rehearsal, she draws a mocking comparison to the legendary Egyptian queen from an unnamed onlooker, shortly before her pregnancy is publicly discovered in the same scene.