Ogryzkova

Ogryzkova is a young woman traveling aboard a train carrying labor conscripts, where her attachment to Prokhor Prituliev places her in direct competition with Pelagia Nilovna Tiagunova. She remains a shadowy figure in the episode: other characters describe her appearance and rivalry, but the account offers little access to her own motives or perspective. Her disappearance after the prisoners escape becomes one of the train’s unresolved mysteries.

Identity and Introduction

Ogryzkova is described as bony, with white eyelashes. She has somehow made her way onto the train and is traveling in a car farther forward than Prituliev’s. Her presence is not explained through a formal account of her arrest or status; instead, she enters the narrative through Tiagunova’s hostility and the passengers’ attempts to understand how she came to be there.

The narrator presents her chiefly in relation to Prituliev, calling her another woman friend of his. That description establishes an intimate association, but the source does not explain its history or define its terms. Ogryzkova’s limited characterization is itself important: she is seen from the outside, through a rivalry narrated more fully by Tiagunova and through speculation by the other travelers.

Rivalry with Tiagunova

Tiagunova, who has volunteered to accompany Prituliev, treats Ogryzkova as a rival. She gives her a series of derisive nicknames, including “the squirt” and “the nozzle,” while Ogryzkova keeps away from Tiagunova’s car. The women avoid one another despite being on the same train, and the narrative leaves open how Ogryzkova manages to see Prituliev. One possibility offered is that she catches sight of him when the train stops for refuelling and passengers help the engine; it remains speculation rather than established fact.

The rivalry becomes audible before it becomes visible. As the train is about to leave, Yurii Andreievich and Antonina Alexandrovna walk back toward their car along the wooded side of the track, while the women move in the same direction on the station side. The long line of cars screens the couples from one another. Ogryzkova and Tiagunova seem to move ahead and fall behind, their voices rising and fading as the travelers follow the train’s length.

Tiagunova accuses Ogryzkova of pursuing Prituliev and making advances toward Vasia Brykin, a sixteen-year-old apprentice. Her outburst brings a second rivalry into view: Tiagunova’s jealousy is not confined to her own relationship with Prituliev, but extends to the possibility that Ogryzkova might turn her attention to the boy. Ogryzkova’s response is not recorded in full, and the account does not establish whether Tiagunova’s accusations are true.

Escape and Uncertain Fate

The next morning, Antonina reports that Prituliev and Vasia have escaped, along with Tiagunova, Ogryzkova, and their guard, Private Voroniuk. The order of events and the means of escape are unknown. The escort commander and the train’s commanding officer dispute whether the train can depart before the prisoners are recaptured, while Kostoied-Amursky rejects the expectation that a prisoner should have been responsible for preventing the guard’s flight. Ogryzkova’s disappearance is therefore part of a larger breakdown in the convoy’s control, not a separately witnessed account of her escape.

The other passengers cannot determine whether the women fled together or separately, or whether either woman killed the other. Their uncertainty makes Ogryzkova’s outcome deliberately unresolved. Later, Vasia tells Tiagunova that he saw Ogryzkova get up after being pushed off the train and run away, and reassures her that Ogryzkova and Prituliev may catch up with them. This is the only account suggesting what happened to her after the escape, and it comes from Vasia rather than an independent confirmation.

Narrative Role

Ogryzkova’s function in the episode is shaped by absence as much as by action. She is introduced as an unseen rival, becomes part of a quarrel heard across a train screened by its own cars, and then vanishes amid an escape that leaves several people’s movements uncertain. The gap between Tiagunova’s accusations, the passengers’ fears, and Vasia’s claim that Ogryzkova survived keeps the reader from treating rumor as fact.

Her story also exposes the limits of the train’s authority. A guard, prisoners, and rival companions all disappear, while the officers argue over responsibility and delay. Ogryzkova is not shown directing events or explaining her choices; instead, her contested presence helps make the escape feel both consequential and unresolved. The narrative leaves her fate open rather than supplying a final reunion or confirmed death.