One of the guests at Antonina Pavlovna's birthday party, the
famous writer Pyotr Nikolaevich,* says that he is an
antidulcinist, a person who doesn't like sweets ("The Event," Act Two).
According to A. Babikov,** "antidulcinist" hints at Dolce stil
novo (the literary movement of the 13th century in Italy) and at Eugene
Onegin ("Here was, to epigrams addicted / a gentleman cross with
everything: / with the too-sweet tea of the hostess***). More likely,
though, the allusion is to Don Quixote's Dulcinea. Note that
Gorky's**** friend Shalyapin impersonated Don Quixote in Massenet's
opera and played him in G. W. Pabst's 1933 sound film Adventures of Don
Quixote.
*a namesake of Sorin, a character in Chekhov's "The Seagull"
(Sirin is but one step away from Sorin)
**the author of Annotations to VN's plays in the
Symposium edition
***Chapter Eight, XXV, 1-3
****A. M. Peshkov's pen name means in Russian "bitter" (the
antonym of sladkiy, "sweet"). Aleksei Maksimovich Troshcheykin
(the main dramatis persona in VN's play) is a namesake
of Gorky
Alexey Sklyarenko