(A guest at Antonina Pavlovna's birthday party, the famous writer finds that general mood is "violet" and asks if it is not a funeral banquet: "you all but forgot to invite a priest." The Event, Act Two)

In Leonid Andreev's story "Покой" (Peace, written on April 23, 1911, under the strong influence of Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich) the dying man is visited by the devil disguised as a priest: Тут-то, в этот самый неизвестный день, и пришёл к сановнику чёрт, обыкновенный чёрт, каких много. В дом он вошёл под видом священника, ладана и свечей, но умершему предстал во всей своей святой правде.

The hero of Andreev's story "Чёрт на свадьбе" (The Devil at the Wedding), Чёрт Карлович has the same patronymic as Eleonora Karlovna Shnap, another guest at Antonina Pavlovna's birthday party.

Leo Tolstoy famously said of Leonid Andreev: "he wants to frighten me, but I am not scared." In The Event, Pyotr Nikolaevich (the famous writer) is львист ("leonine").

Alexey Sklyarenko