figure
Lev Pustyakov
Pustyakov
also: Лев Пустяков, Lev Nikolaich
A collegiate registrar teaching at a military preparatory school who borrows a friend's Order of St. Stanislaus to impress a wealthy merchant host at a New Year's dinner, and spends the meal contorting himself to hide and reveal it.
Reading notes
- The Decoration §1 Lev Pustyakov
A collegiate registrar (the lowest rank of the Table of Ranks) teaching at a military preparatory school; the story's borrower and wearer of a decoration not his own, whose petty status-anxiety drives the whole comic plot.