person
Sofya Savvishna
also: Софья Саввишна
Popov's wife, who has come to him from Mtsensk to ask for a separate residence permit; she suffers unbearably from a toothache and gumboil throughout the story, alternately groaning for help and railing at her husband as heartless and tyrannical while he ignores her, absorbed in his calculations.
Reading notes
- Life's Trials §9 Boor!
"Невежа!" is a period insult meaning an ill-mannered, uncouth person; Sofya Savvishna's escalating string of names for her husband (heartless, tormentor, boor, barbarian, tyrant, murderer, idol) tracks with her rising pain and his continued indifference, building toward her closing self-description as a martyr.