Shrek

A specialist physician sent for during Dymov's fatal illness in "The Grasshopper," credited by Korostelev with being the first to notice that Dymov's diphtheria had spread into the nasal cavity -- a sign of the disease's severity -- though Korostelev otherwise dismisses him with weary bitterness ("what good is Shrek... nothing much, Shrek") in the depths of his own grief. In Olga Ivanovna's feverish half-sleep his name recurs as a fragment of sound-association ("Shrek, wreck, trek... check") rather than as a meaningful presence.