Vasily Perov (as invoked in "A Dreary Story")

A "Professor Perov" whose reported death the narrator mentions to Pyotr Ignatyevich in "A Dreary Story" (Section 41-42), prompting only the deadpan question "And what did he lecture on?" -- most likely a generic or invented professorial name for the anecdote rather than a specific identifiable historical scholar (compare the painter Vasily Perov, 1834-1882, who is not otherwise connected to this passage).