As has been pointed out before, the elderly couple at Antonina Pavlovna's birthday party, Aunt Zhenya (the sister of Antonina Pavlovna's late husband) and Uncle Paul, hints at Jean Paul (pen name of Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763-1825). Jean Paul is the author of Auswahl aus des Teufels Papieren ("Selections from the Devil's Papers," 1789, signed J. P. F. Hasus). There is a Doppelgänger in Jean Paul's novels Blumen-, Frucht- und Dornenstücke, oder Ehestand, Tod und Hochzeit des Armenadvokaten Siebenkäs ("Flower, Fruit and Thorn Pieces; or, the Married Life, Death and Wedding of Siebenkäs, Poor Man's Lawyer," 1796-97) and Flegeljahre ("The Awkward Age," 1804-5).
 
Alexey Sklyarenko
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