person
Madame Merezhkovskaya (Zinaida Gippius)
Merezhkovskaya
also: Мережковская, Merezhkovskaya, г-жа Мережковская
Wife of the writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky, traveling with him in Italy in spring 1891 at the same time as Chekhov; referred to here only by her married name and cited as the source of the cost-of-living figures (francs per week rather than per day) that Chekhov admits he garbled in a previous letter. Identifiable as the poet Zinaida Nikolaevna Gippius (1869-1945), Merezhkovsky's wife, though the letter itself names her only by her married honorific.
Reading notes
- To the Chekhovs, 1891. Venice. §6 Madame Merezhkovskaya
The wife of the poet Dmitry Merezhkovsky, who along with her husband was in Italy the same spring as Chekhov (cf., where Chekhov reports encountering Merezhkovsky in Venice "gone out of his mind with delight"); Chekhov corrects an exaggerated cost-of-living claim from an earlier letter (not preserved in this selection) by clarifying that her figure of so many francs was per day, not per week.