person
Zhirkov
also: Жирков, Dmitri Grigorich, Дмитрий Григорич
The story's protagonist, a red-haired lover on his way by cab, in pouring rain, to deliver a ball gown and other gifts to his mistress Nadezhda Osipovna -- only to blunder, by pure bad luck, into a long comic encounter with her just-returned husband, Boiseau, whom he never lets on to recognize.
Reading notes
- An Unpleasant Business §65 Il y a un monsieur roux...
Boiseau, waking his wife, switches into fluent French to tell her a "red-haired gentleman" ("monsieur roux") has brought her dress -- fluent French being the one register in which he speaks without the broken accent used for his Russian, underscoring that the accent is specifically a foreign-speaking-Russian joke, not a general speech impediment.
- An Unpleasant Business §72 Stepan Andreich
Nadezhda Osipovna introduces Zhirkov to her husband under a false name and patronymic, "Stepan Andreich," continuing the fiction Zhirkov began by claiming to be Madame Catiche's brother -- Boiseau never learns his guest's real name, let alone his relationship to the household.
Mentioned in 1 work (32 mentions)
An Unpleasant Business
- §4 Zhirkov
- §9 Zhirkov
- §10 Zhirkov
- §11 Zhirkov
- §12 Dmitri Grigorich
- §13 Zhirkov
- §15 Zhirkov
- §18 Zhirkov
- §20 Zhirkov
- §21 Zhirkov
- §24 Zhirkov
- §25 Zhirkov
- §29 Zhirkov
- §31 Zhirkov
- §34 Zhirkov
- §38 Zhirkov
- §40 Zhirkov
- §42 Zhirkov
- §45 Zhirkov
- §46 Zhirkov
- §49 Zhirkov
- §50 Zhirkov
- §54 Zhirkov
- §58 Zhirkov
- §60 Zhirkov
- §61 Zhirkov
- §64 Zhirkov
- §68 Zhirkov
- §69 Zhirkov
- §70 Zhirkov
- §71 Zhirkov
- §73 Zhirkov