On Antonina Pavlovna's fiftieth
birthday Troshcheykin asks his mother-in-law, if she knows who else eats every morning, as she does, three fifths of a
carrot. She does not know and asks him, but he does not know
either:
Трощейкин. Кстати, Антонина Павловна, вы знаете, кто
ещё, как вы, ест по утрам три пятых морковки?
Антонина Павловна. Кто?
Трощейкин. Не знаю, - я вас спрашиваю. (Act
One)
Antonina Pavlovna's name and patronymic hint at Chekhov. In a letter of
April 20, 1904, to his wife Olga Knipper Chekhov compares life to a
carrot:
Ты спрашиваешь: что такое жизнь? Это всё равно,
что спросить: что такое морковка? Морковка есть морковка, и больше ничего
неизвестно.
You ask "What is life?" That is the same as asking "What is a
carrot?" A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.
If I understand it correctly, Antonina Pavlovna has lived her
life to three fifths. Fifty years being three fifths of her life, she will live
about thirty three years more and die in 1971, at eighty three. Remarkably,
Chekhov loved to predict to his friends the date (and even
circumstances) of death:
Будь здоров и благополучен и не бойся
нефрита, которого у тебя нет и не будет. Ты умрёшь через 67 лет, и не от
нефрита; тебя убьёт молния в Монте-Карло.
Don't be afraid of nephritis. You'll die in 67 years and not of
nephritis; a lightning in Monte-Carlo will kill you." (a letter of July 6, 1898,
to Sumbatov-Yuzhin)
When he compared life to a carrot, Chekhov had only two
months of life. One is tempted to assume that Troshcheykin's wife Lyubov'
commits suicide and dreams of Barbashin disguised as Waltz two months after
the end of The Event.
Alexey Sklyarenko