person
Vasily Krinolinsky
Krinolinsky
also: старый экзекутор, Василий Кринолинский, the old office executor, Vasily Krinolinsky
The old office executor in Navagin's department who, caught up in the spiritualism craze his superior sets off, loses his mind and sends a telegram addressed literally to Hell, prepaying the reply -- the story's broadest satirical stroke on how a fad cascades down an institutional hierarchy.
Reading notes
- A Secret §30 ``To Hell, Exchequer Office. I feel myself turning into an unclean spirit.''
The old office executor's telegram, addressed literally to Hell and prepaying a reply, is the story's broadest joke about the séance craze spreading downward through an entire government office until a minor official has a breakdown -- Chekhov's satire is aimed less at belief in spirits than at how quickly institutional groupthink turns any fad, however absurd, into mass behavior.