person
Shchukina
also: Щукина, the petitioner, просительница
An elderly petitioner in an old-fashioned cloak who besieges Kistunov's private bank over a military-pension deduction that properly belongs to a different department entirely; immovably persistent through everyone's explanations, she repeats her refrain of being a "weak, defenceless woman" until Kistunov pays her the disputed sum himself just to end the ordeal, and returns again the next day.