person
A. M. Simonov
Simonov
also: А. М. Симонов, A. M. Simonov
A distant relative of the Chekhovs living in Yekaterinburg, on whom Chekhov calls during his stopover there; a member of the district zemstvo board, director of his cousin's electrically-lit mill, and editor of the "Yekaterinburg Week" (Екатеринбургская неделя), censored by the local police chief Baron Taube. Chekhov's account of their meeting -- a first alarming impression of a huge, sullen stranger that resolves comically into the mild relative -- is followed by a dry, deadpan note that the visit was correct but not warm: Simonov did not invite him to dinner, confirming (Chekhov tells his mother) that the family's estrangement from this branch of relatives has not thawed.
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 29 April 1890. Yekaterinburg. §9 A. M. Simonov
A. M. Simonov was a distant relative of the Chekhovs settled in Yekaterinburg -- a member of the district zemstvo board, director of his cousin's electrically-lit mill, and editor of the "Yekaterinburg Week" newspaper (censored, per this same section, by the local police chief Baron Taube). The passage's comic structure -- a hulking, terrifying stranger who turns out to be the mild relative Chekhov had just written ahead to -- resolves into a dry social anticlimax: Simonov invites Chekhov to tea but not to dinner, which Chekhov reads for his mother's benefit as proof the branch-family estrangement has not thawed ("Simonov and I have no need of each other").