Kuzma Nikolaich Khirin

The bank's bookkeeper in Chekhov's "The Anniversary" ("Юбилей"); an old man, exhausted and feverish after days of nonstop figure-work on Shipuchin's anniversary report, and murderous with suppressed rage at any interruption. His temper finally comes completely unglued at the petitioner Merchutkina, whom he chases bodily around the office in the play's climactic pandemonium while shouting threats to "grind her to powder" -- played strictly for comic escalation.