The challenge was accepted; two native seconds were
chosen; the Baron plumped for swords; and after a certain amount of good blood
(Polish and Irish - a kind of American 'Gory Mary' in barroom parlance) had
bespattered two hairy torsoes, the whitewashed terrace, the flight of steps
leading backward to the walled garden in an amusing Douglas d'Artagnan
arrangement, the apron of a quite accidental milkmaid, and the shirtsleeves of
both seconds, charming Monsieur de Pastrouil and Colonel St Alin, a scoundrel,
the latter gentlemen separated the panting combatants, and Skonky died, not 'of
his wounds' (as it was viciously rumored) but of a gangrenous afterthought on
the part of the least of them, possibly self-inflicted, a sting in the groin,
which caused circulatory trouble, notwithstanding quite a few surgical
interventions during two or three years of protracted stays at the Aardvark
Hospital in Boston - a city where, incidentally, he married in 1869 our friend
the Bohemian lady, now keeper of Glass Biota at the local museum.
(1.2)
Charming Monsieur de Pastrouil seems to be the Antiterran twin of Louis
Pasteur (1822-95), a French chemist and bacteriologist. Pasteur is mentioned in
Chekhov's story Palata № 6 (Ward No. 6, 1892):
A radical cure for syphilis had been discovered. And
the theory of heredity, hypnotism, the discoveries of Pasteur and of Koch,
hygiene based on statistics, and the work of Zemstvo doctors! Psychiatry with
its modern classification of mental diseases, methods of diagnosis, and
treatment, was a perfect Elborus in comparison with what had been in the
past. (chapter VII)
"Colonel St. Alin, a scoundrel," clearly hints at Stalin (1879-1953).
Dzhugashvili (Stalin's real name) was born in Gori (Georgia).
"Elborus" mentioned by Chekhov is an old spelling of Elbrus, a
mountain in the Caucasus range (the highest peak in Europe).
According to Van, the father of the Erminin twins (who, according
to Demon, is "practically mad," 1.38) preferred to pass for a Chekhovian colonel
(3.2).
Before the discovery of "a radical cure for syphilis," mercury was
used as a remedy. In his farewell letter to Marina Demon wrote: