Following inconclusive conclusion of consistency discussion I opened closest VN’s book on my bookshelves as consistency refresher (it always does for me) and immediately came upon this sentence in chapter 3 of The Gift, where engineer Kern says:

 

“Who cares what Chernyshevski thought of Pushkin? Rousseau was a lousy botanist, and I wouldn’t have been treated by Dr. Chekhov for anything in the world.”

 

Now, that is consistency, in light of what Alexey told us.

 

We also know that Chernyshevski and Fyodor (who wrote about him) were born on July 12^th, 1828 and 1900, respectfully.

 

Now, is it coincidence that these two sentences follow one another?

 

- George

-----Original Message-----
Yesterday was the 31th anniversary of VN's death. I recently learned that VN died on the same day as J. J. Rousseau, 199 years (why not 200? either Jean Jacques was granted a superfluous year of life, or VN didn't want to plagiarize) after the Swiss-born writer. Chekhov (1860-1904), too, died on July 2, but the date is by the old style (it corresponds to July 15 of the Gregorian calendar).