person
Drishka
also: Дришка, Дришка Фофанова
A private family nickname for a young woman in the Chekhov household's circle, referenced twice in this letter: gulls over the Volga are jokingly compared to "the younger Drishka" (\S4), and the family is asked to retrieve a book of the poet Fofanov's from her (\S13, "Drishka Fofanova") -- the surname-style pairing suggests the nickname belongs to a woman connected to or named alongside Fofanov, though the exact relationship (relative, associate) is not established by the letter itself.
Reading notes
- To M. P. Chekhova, 14 January 1891. Petersburg. §4 I've picked up Drishka's trail
Drishka, a private family nickname already established elsewhere in the corpus; here Chekhov reports having located her living in his own building in Petersburg, with a visit planned for the next day.
- To M. P. Chekhova, 16 January 1891. Petersburg. §6 I have found Drishka
"Drishka" is a private family-circle nickname already used in an earlier letter, where gulls over the Volga are jokingly compared to "the younger Drishka" and the family is asked to retrieve a book from "Drishka Fofanova." This letter's discovery that she lives in Chekhov's own Petersburg building, and the farcical broken-engagement anecdote that follows, develop the same continuing acquaintance rather than introducing a new, unrelated figure.