person
Pyotr Demyanych
also: Петр Демьяныч, the uncle, the Latin teacher
The narrator's dry, bilious uncle, a collegiate councillor who teaches Latin at the gymnasium; discovering mice have gnawed his syntax textbook, he sets out to "train" the household's half-grown kitten into a mouser by drilling it against a baited mousetrap, berating and manhandling it each time fear rather than instinct wins out.