person
Petrov
also: Петров
A man named by Doctor Tsvetkov as one of two others (with the lawyer Kurovsky) who, like Tsvetkov himself, have continued paying Olga Ivanovna money toward Misha's upbringing -- evidence, in Tsvetkov's telling, that Olga has had more than one man believing himself the boy's father. Never appears on stage; known only through Tsvetkov's accusations and a letter of Olga's addressed to him.
Reading notes
- The Doctor §47 Petrov and the lawyer Kurovsky share the paternal rights to this boy equally with me
Tsvetkov's bitter phrase ("отеческие права... разделяют") is sardonic, not literal: no one holds a formal legal claim to fatherhood here. He means that he, Petrov, and Kurovsky have each continued to pay Olga money for Misha's upbringing, which he takes as proof each has been allowed to believe -- or been led to believe -- that he might be the boy's real father. The detail is delivered as an accusation of Olga's sustained deception rather than as neutral fact, and it is why he presses her, at the deathbed, to finally tell him the truth.