animal
Fyodor Timofeich
also: Федор Тимофеич
A dog (or possibly cat) kept by the Chekhov family in Moscow in the mid-1880s, greeted here along with "the little dog without a back" and the whip; Chekhov would reuse the name the same year for the elderly performing cat Fyodor Timofeyich in "Kashtanka".
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 13 March 1887. Petersburg. §8 Fyodor Timofeich
A household pet of the Chekhov family, greeted here alongside "the little dog without a back" and the family whip in the letter's closing run of domestic banter. Chekhov reused the name the same year, 1887, for the elderly, gloomy performing cat Fyodor Timofeyich in his story "Kashtanka" -- a small instance of his private household vocabulary migrating directly into his fiction.
- To M. V. Kiseleva, 13 September 1887. Moscow. §10 The cat Fyodor Timofeich
A household pet named here as a cat, though the same name would recur the same year for the elderly performing cat Fyodor Timofeyich in Chekhov's story "Kashtanka"; the animal's exact species across the corpus's mentions is not entirely consistent, characteristic of Chekhov's private, joking household references.