person
Zhenya Volchaninova (Misyus)
Misyus
also: Женя, Мисюсь, Мисюська, Zhenya, Misyus, Misyusya
The younger Volchaninov sister, seventeen or eighteen, nicknamed Misyus (from her childhood mispronunciation of "miss," her English governess) and still treated by her family as not yet grown up; an idle, avid reader with an unformed but wide-ranging inner life, she falls in love with the narrator over the course of a summer, but is taken away by her mother and sister -- at Lida's insistence -- once the romance comes to light, and has vanished from the family home by the story's end.
Reading notes
- The House with the Mezzanine §16 Misyus
The narrator explains the nickname's origin directly in the text: as a child Zhenya mispronounced "miss," the English word for her governess, as "Misyus," and the family kept the name. See the translation notes in the headnote for how the diminutive form "Мисюська"/"Misyusya" in Section 85 is handled.