Aunt Dasha

Vera's aunt, about forty-two, who runs her elderly father's steppe estate; effusively affectionate toward Vera in a cloying, self-interested register ("I am your obedient slave") while presiding over a petty domestic tyranny -- churning through servants, docking wages from the maid Alyona, dismissing a laborer for illegitimate birth -- and pressing Vera with increasing bluntness to marry the wealthy Doctor Neshchapov.