The ReviewerNarrator
The first-person narrator who is summarizing and reacting to the academic texts of Professor Kouska and Professor Vrchlicka.
I
The NurseProfessor Kouska's mother
A volunteer nurse who entered the wrong room and was ejected by Surgeon Kouska, setting off a chain of events that led to their marriage.
volunteer nursesociety missyoung lady
Doctor PopichalSurgeon Kouska's colleague
A doctor whose sprained ankle on a dark stairwell forced Surgeon Kouska to take his place in surgery.
The Regiment DoctorSurgeon Kouska's superior
The superior who demanded that the young surgeon apologize to the nurse for his unseemly behavior.
superior
Archduke FerdinandHistorical figure
His assassination in Sarajevo is cited as a necessary precondition for the outbreak of war and the subsequent meeting of Kouska's parents.
The SerbHistorical figure
The assassin of Archduke Ferdinand, whose steady hand is factored into the probability of Kouska's birth.
assassin
MarikaSurgeon Kouska's former fiancée
Surgeon Kouska's initial betrothed from Lwów, whose hoarse voice from an unremoved polyp made him prefer the nurse's singing.
OtorhinolaryngologistDoctor
A doctor who fled to Italy after losing money in a casino instead of removing Marika's polyp.
Adolf Alfred von Messen-Weydeneck zu Oryola und Münne-sacks, Baron HamurasThe nurse's first suitor
A grounded pilot suffering from a recurring hernia and Schreibkrampf, whom the nurse refused to marry.
Hamuras
Major General PrchlImperial Crown Commissariat
A general whose affair with a French governess indirectly influenced Austro-Hungarian aviation contracts and Baron Hamuras's fate.
Lieutenant General Prchl
The GovernessGeneral Prchl's mistress
A French governess who had a baby with a two-bit tenor, causing General Prchl to lose his affection for all things French.
French mistress
Captain MiśniaThe nurse's second suitor
A captain who died of pneumonia after an artillery shell blasted him naked from a steam bath into the snow.
Fourth SuitorThe nurse's suitor
A heavily indebted suitor whose past was revealed to the nurse's father due to a sequence of events involving beer.
beau
Surgeon KouskaProfessor Kouska's father
A military doctor during the First World War who fell in love with and married a volunteer nurse after initially ejecting her from an operating room.
army doctordoctor-prisoner Kouskayoung surgeon KouskaBenedykt KouskaProfessor B. Kouska
SergiusStudent/Employer
A boy whose failure to learn languages necessitated bringing Surgeon Kouska's father along as a translator.
Ylastimil KouskaAncestor
A tailor born in 1673, whose existence was a necessary precondition for Professor Kouska's birth.
PaleopithecanthropusProtohuman ancestor
A quadrumanous protohuman who pursued and mated with a female ancestor under a eucalyptus tree in prehistoric Prague.
Quadrumanous protohuman primatriceProtohuman ancestor
A female protohuman ancestor who stumbled on a eucalyptus root, leading to a fateful prehistoric pregnancy.
quadrumanal femalequadrumaness
Professor Bedřich VrchlickaCritic
The author of a critical article in Zëmledëlské Noviny who debunks Professor Kouska's antiprobabilistic theories.