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Krechinsky
also: Кречинский
The suave swindler-gambler protagonist of Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin's play Krechinsky's Wedding (1855), a stock Russian byword for a charming confidence man.
Reading notes
- The Alarm Clock's Calendar §208 Krechinsky
The suave swindler-gambler of Sukhovo-Kobylin's play *Krechinsky's Wedding* (1855), a stock Russian byword for a charming confidence man.
- To A. S. Suvorin, 18 December 1888. Moscow. §16 In comes Krechinsky
The nickname itself alludes to Mikhail Krechinsky, the suave swindler-gambler protagonist of Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin's play "Krechinsky's Wedding" ("Свадьба Кречинского," 1855), already an established literary-character entity in this corpus. Chekhov's joke likens the husband's moneyed, plausible manner to Sukhovo-Kobylin's confidence man -- a jab at manner and type, not a claim that the husband resembles Krechinsky's actual swindling conduct.