...Suvorin's first wife was assassinated by her lover (who
committed suicide). Tolstoy learned the details of the murder from Kramskoy,
the artist who made a portrait (two portraits, to be precise) of the
writer. Lyubov's husband Aleksey Maksimovich Troshcheykin (whose name and
patronymic hint at Chekhov's and Tolstoy's friend Gorky) is a portrait
painter. Gorky is the author of Mat' ("The Mother," 1906).
Barbashin and Barboshin seem to be two incarnations of the devil. The
solution of The Event is the saying Ne tak strashen chyort kak ego
malyuyut (the devil is not as terrible as he is painted). The solution of
The Waltz Invention seems to be our national Oedipean oath,
ebyona mat' (fuck your mother).
Alexey Sklyarenko