person
Old Musatov's common-law partner
the old woman
also: бабенция, моя бабенция, his old woman, the "old woman"
The unnamed woman Old Musatov lives with, referred to throughout only as his "бабенция" (roughly, "my old woman"/"my baba"). Ill-tempered and given to moving lodgings often, she presides over a shabby room shared with two other women; Musatov defends her to Boris as ignorant and rude but good-hearted underneath.