Inside the story
Meet Mikhail Maksimovich Kurolyessoff
An Army major and landowner who marries Praskovya Ivanovna Bagrova to gain control of her considerable property. Initially he appears courteous, capable, businesslike, and attentive to agricultural management, but he later becomes a drunken and brutally arbitrary master who terrorizes dependants, organizes a band of ruffians, and inflicts torture and violence on those under his authority. After Praskovya attempts to revoke his control, he imprisons and beats her at Parashino.
On the page
A man of about twenty-eight, fine-looking and regularly featured, broadly considered handsome though with something subtly unpleasing in his appearance. He wears a red silk shirt.
