Varvarushka

A thin, tall woman dressed entirely in black, smelling of cypress and coffee, who lives in the household's lower, "woman's kingdom" half of the house and has already prepared her own burial shroud, which she keeps in the same trunk as her lottery bonds. Devout in outward manner, she is the target of the pilgrim woman Zhuzhelitsa's pointed gossip during the evening's card game about pious-seeming women who secretly keep rich old lovers -- gossip that leaves Varvarushka sighing and crossing herself in silence. Aunt Tatyana Ivanovna later recalls, in an unguarded moment, that Varvarushka and the late Ivan Ivanych, both outwardly of "saintly life," had quietly borne children out of wedlock and sent them to the foundling home.