Who She Is
Praskovya Fyodorovna Golovina, born Mikhel, is the wife of Ivan Ilyich Golovin. In chapter II she is the most attractive, intelligent and brilliant young woman in his circle in the provincial city, of good noble family, not at all plain and with a small fortune, who falls in love with him while dancing at the ends of evenings. Once married, they lose three children and raise Lisa and Vasya. Almost everything the reader knows about her comes from the husband's side, measured by his yardstick, and the narrator marks this: in chapter II her irritation seems to Ivan Ilyich to have no cause, and the text does not say whether it did. She opens the book as a widow, in chapter I, and closes it at the bedside, mouth open and tears on her face, in chapter XII.
Trajectory
In chapter I, short, plump and all in black, she receives Pyotr Ivanovich with the phrase decorum requires, leads him into the pink chintz room (The Decorated Room), argues with the butler Sokolov over the price of the cemetery plot, says she finds it pretense to claim that grief prevents one from attending to practical matters, and tells him her husband screamed for three days without stopping. Then she comes to the subject for which she called him:
Она сделала вид, что спрашивает у Петра Ивановича совета о пенсионе [...] но что ей хотелось узнать, нельзя ли как-нибудь вытянуть еще побольше денег, She pretended to ask Pyotr Ivanovich for advice about the pension [...] but what she wanted to know was whether there might be some way to squeeze out even more money.
In chapter II the marriage goes well until the first pregnancy; afterward she becomes jealous, demands attention and makes scenes, and insults her husband with the evident determination not to stop until he stays home and bores himself as she does. When his job keeps him away, she blames him for all the family's misfortunes, the deaths of two children among them, and out of spite sends the boy to the gymnasium against his will.
In chapter III she spends the summer of 1880 with her husband on his brother's estate; when he comes back from Petersburg with his new post, she pretends to believe everything he tells her, contradicts him in nothing and makes plans that are his, and the couple makes up. Then comes the ball, the forty-five ruble bill for sweets, and she calls him a fool and a wimp.
In chapter IV she realizes that his bad mood at the table is a sickly state, stops answering him and makes a great virtue of it. The narrator shows from inside what she feels:
Решив, что муж ее имеет ужасный характер и сделал несчастие ее жизни, она стала жалеть себя. И чем больше она жалела себя, тем больше ненавидела мужа. Она стала желать, чтоб он умер, но не могла этого желать, потому что тогда не было бы жалованья., Having decided that her husband had a dreadful temper and had made her life unhappy, she began to pity herself. And the more she pitied herself, the more she hated her husband. She began to wish that he would die, but she could not wish it, because then there would be no salary.
She insists that he see the famous doctor, hears the account of the consultation only halfway through because her daughter comes in wearing a hat to go out with her, and in front of acquaintances fixes a version: he does not follow the treatment, eats sturgeon, stays at vint until one in the morning, and so torments the family.
In chapter V, when her brother says that Ivan Ilyich is a dead man, she replies that no one knows what he has. At night she hears the noise in his room, offers to call the famous doctor without sparing money, and kisses him on the forehead:
Он ненавидел ее всеми силами души в то время, как она целовала его, и делал усилия, чтобы не оттолкнуть ее., He hated her with all the strength of his soul while she kissed him, and made an effort not to push her away.
In chapter VI it is she who tells him to let the servants move the album, that he will hurt himself again, and the remark sends the pain right through the room's screen (The Fall and the Curtain).
In chapter VIII she tells the doctor that her husband does not obey and keeps his legs on the shoulders of Gerasim (Gerasim's Legs on His Shoulders), announces that she has called the famous doctor, saying she does it for herself, and weeps as she leaves to pay the fee, after seeing her husband's look of hope. That evening she goes to the theater with her daughter and her fiancé, saying she would rather stay home. In chapter IX she comes back late and wants to send Gerasim away so that she can stay with her husband, and he does not let her.
In chapter XI she enters to give the news of Lisa's marriage proposal, receives a look of hatred before she gives it, asks him to confess and take communion, for her sake, and after communion asks whether he does not feel better. The question does the opposite of what she intended: Ivan Ilyich sees in her clothes, body, face and voice all that he has lived by. In chapter XII it is for her, and for her son, that the husband feels pity at the end:
Он хотел сказать еще «прости», но сказал «пропусти», и, не в силах уже будучи поправиться, махнул рукою, зная, что поймет тот, кому надо, He meant to say "forgive," but said "let it pass," and, too weak now to correct himself, he waved his hand, knowing that whoever needed to understand would understand.
Themes Embodied
Praskovya Fyodorovna embodies Appearance and Reality on the household's side: she does not lie more than her husband, she lies in his own language. The consultation about the pension in chapter I, the patience that becomes a virtue in chapter IV, the version for acquaintances and the expensive doctor offered in chapter V are the decorous forms that Ivan Ilyich learned and practiced. What he hates in her from chapter V on is the image of his own life, and that is what chapter XI says when he sees himself in her.
What she wants is for the life of the household to go on: the salary, the daughter's engagement, the box at the theater. What the text fears it says in chapter IV: that her husband will die and the salary will end, and at the same time that he will live and her unhappiness will continue. She knows more than she says, starting with the pension; where she is wrong is in treating as illness what he already knows is death, and so each of her gestures of care reaches him as an insult, part of the Truth and Lies that surround him.
Divergent Readings
The text sustains two readings of her. In one, she is the figure the book simplifies: seen always through Ivan Ilyich or Pyotr Ivanovich, she only calculates, the pension in chapter I, the salary in chapter IV, the box in chapter VIII. In the other, the book leaves openings that complicate her: she weeps as she pays the famous doctor in chapter VIII, after the look of hope from her husband; she wants to spend the night with him in chapter IX; and in chapter XII she is at the bedside, in tears, when he no longer screams. The second reading does not absolve her; it shows that decorum also held her in, and that the pity the husband feels at the end reaches someone who perhaps pitied him in the only way she knew how.
Relationships
- Ivan Ilyich Golovin: the husband, who married her for her charm and her propriety (chapter II) and to whom she urges communion (chapter XI).
- Lisa: the daughter, with whom she goes out during the season (chapter IV) and to the theater (chapter VIII), and who asks her, outside the room, what they are to blame for (chapter XI).
- Vasya: the son, whom she put in the gymnasium against her husband's will (chapter II) and whom her husband points out to her with his eyes at the end (chapter XII).
- Pyotr Ivanovich: her husband's colleague, whom she asks for advice about the pension (chapter I).
- Gerasim: the servant she sends to the pharmacy (chapter IV), whom she complains about to the doctor (chapter VIII) and whom she wants to dismiss at night (chapter IX).