Varya

Nikolai Stepanovich's wife in "A Dreary Story" -- once the slender young woman he fell passionately in love with for her mind, soul, and "compassion" for his science, now (in his eyes) a stout, anxious, querulous old woman preoccupied with household expenses, their son's allowance in Warsaw, and their daughter Liza's marriage prospects. The narrator's inability to find his old Varya in her face is one of the story's recurring notes of estrangement.