THE PETCHENYEG

The Petchenyeg

Ivan Abramitch Zhmuhin is so full of himself that he doesn't realize the consequences of his actions.

He has reduced his wife to a nonentity. The man even has his own room. Having bought her when she was seventeen -- he has watched her crying for the last twenty years -- and it has never occurred to him to try to ease her misery. Instead he dismisses her completely. He believes women are not human beings.

He has not educated his children and they spent their time shooting birds.

Zhmuhin's head is full ideas which he generously shares with his reluctant visitor. He thinks so much about the state of the world and his own being that he obviously has no time to see the reality in front of him. He is blind to the home life he has constructed. (Reminds me a bit of Dick Cheney -- full of grand ideas and clueless to the damage he did to the country.)

Zhmuhin is totally oblivious to the criticism of others. Even after the visitor shouts at him and tells him he has bored him to death -- he has a temporary moment of doubt -- but quickly recovers and goes back to his own "profound" ideas.

The world is full of characters like Zhmuhin -- people engrossed by their thoughts who truly think they are deep and serious and and are unaware of how much havoc they cause on their family and the world.

Howard Gardner has written a lot about multiple intelligences. Zhmuhin excels in intrapersonal intelligence but he's completely lacking in interpersonal intelligence.

But of course he'll never realize it.