person
Blaise Pascal
Pascal
also: Паскаль
The French mathematician and religious philosopher (1623-1662), named by Chekhov alongside Schopenhauer in self-deprecating disclaimer -- conceding to Suvorin that he is neither so systematically pessimistic nor so searchingly self-scrutinizing as either figure, before turning the exchange back on Suvorin's own misreading of an earlier letter.