Officer Street: a street in the west of central St. Petersburg.
I74 Contant's or Donon's: the restaurants of Contant and Donon,
both on the Moyka Canal, are listed in the I9I2 Baedeker, the latter carrying one star.
the Old Town: literally: 'The Petersburg Side' (Peterburgskaya storona). Lying to the north of the River Neva, this was the oldest part of the city now called Leningrad, containing the Peter and Paul Fortress and Peter the Great's house.
176 Three meetings . . . Vieni, pensando . . .: reference is to Turge- nev's story Three Meetings (I852). The line Vieni, pensando a me segretamente ('Come, thinking of me in secret') forms part of a quatrain from an Italian song, which Turgenev used as the epigraph to the story.
liberate Bulgaria: reference is to Turgenev's novel On the Eve (186o), the hero ofwhich, Insarov, is a Bulgarian struggling for his country's freedom. His inamorata, a Russian girl called Helen, offers (literally) to follow him 'to the ends of the earth'.
I 83 a typical red-tape merchant: literally, 'a hero from Shchedrin': that is, one of those comic civil servants (chinovniki) who form the main butts of the satirist Shchedrin (see also note to p. I65 above).
visiting your superiors to wish them a Happy New Year: the practice ofpaying a formal visit to one's superior officer on this occasion was generally incumbent on subordinate civil servants.
I90 Sergiyevsky Street: in the eastern part of central St. Petersburg, running east from the Summer Garden.
194 the beard-and-caftan brigade: literally 'their worthinesses' (ikh stepenstva), an honorific sometimes bestowed on Russian merchants, here used sardonically.
20I Saint-Saens: Camille Saint-Saens (1835-I92I), the French composer.
thegates of Gaza: reference is to Samson's exploit in carrying the gates ofGaza 'to the top ofthe hill that is before Hebron'. Judges
16: 3.
In some novel of Dostoyevsky's: reference is to Insulted and Injured (i86i) by F. M. Dostoyevsky, which includes an episode where an elderly father, Ikhmenev, tramples on a medallion containing the portrait of his daughter Natasha, cursing her as he does so.
209 the Neva: the river on which St. Petersburg (Leningrad) was built.
21 I Pиre Goriot: reference is to the novel Le Pиre Goriot (1834) by the French novelist Honorй de Balzac (1799-1850).
2 I 3 Canova:Antonio Canova (1757-1822), the Italian sculptor, who died in Venice.
Faliero: Marino Faliero (c. I274-I355), a Doge of Venice who sided with the mob against the nobility. He was beheaded after leading an unsuccessful coup d'йtat, and his portrait in the Palace of Dages was defaced.
224 Myfate, yegods . . . : a parody of Famusov's celebrated exit lines from the end of Act I of Woefrom Wit (written I 822-4) by A. S. Griboyedov (I795-I829). In Griboyedov's original the 'tiny' daughter mentioned by Orlov was 'grown-up'. The couplet is correctly quoted in Chekhov's short play The Proposal (I888--9); see The Oxford Chekhov, vol. i, p. 77.
DOCTOR STARTSEV
227 'Erefrom the Cup of Life I yet had Drunk the Tears': from the poem An Elegy by A. A. Delvig (I798-I83I).
'Rushlight': a well-known folk-song.
'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever': literally: 'Die, Denis, you '11 not write better!' This remark was made to the eighteenth-century Russian playwright D. I. Fonvizin by Catherine the Great's favourite Potemkin after a performance of Fonvizin's play The Brigadier.
'Your Voice, to me both Languorous and Tender': the first lines of Pushkin's lyric Night (1823) read: 'My voice, to you both languorous and tender.'
Pisemsky . . .A Thousand Souls: reference is to the novel A Thousand Souls (I858) by Alexis Feofilaktovich Pisemsky (I 82o-8 1).
The hour cometh when-: John 4: 23.