CHEKHOV IN ANATOLIA

-------------------THE BEAUTIES
When the narrator was young he took a long, dusty and gruelling journey across t
he steppe with his grandfather. They stopped at the house of an Armenian and the
Armenian's daughter, who brought the tea, was so beautiful that everyone felt s
ad and not aroused to desire or ecstasy but simply as though struck by lightning
. Some years later, travelling by train, he sees another beauty, a stationmaster
's daughter who, unlike the Armenian, lacks regular or individually interesting
features but there is delight in her every movement. Again sadness fills the air
as the train steams away and the guard lights the evening candles.
THE WIFE
The narrator, who is writing a History of Railways, receives an anonymous letter
asking him for help to support a village suffering from an influx of sick and h
omeless refugees. He and his wife live estranged on separate floors. The letter
disturbs his longing for peace and literature and he invites a local landowner t
o organise a relief effort. The landowner is cynical about the peasants and the
relief effort, while the estranged wife resents the intrusion on her own relief
work. The narrator demands that she stop holding meetings at his house and insis
ts on examining the paperwork for her project. He makes a large anonymous donati
on and then prepares to go away to Petersburg. But instead he goes to visit the
cynical landowner and encounters the doctor from the relief effort who insults h
im. He promises to provide funds to the doctor and returns to tell his wife that
he is a changed man. She bursts into tears and runs out, leaving him to resume
work contentedly on his History of Railways.
EXCELLENT PEOPLE
Vladimir fancies himself a literary man; he writes book reviews. His sister Vera
is a young widowed physician who doesn't practise. She lives with Vladimir and
broods about the idea of non-resistance to evil. Finally, she abruptly announces
that she is leaving to do vaccination work in the provinces. Vladimir doesn't r
egret her leaving. He continues to write his articles, falls ill, and dies. The
narrator doesn't know what happened to Vera.
THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE
An examining magistrate and a doctor are driving to an inquest. The former tells
the latter of a woman who predicted that she would die straight after giving bi
rth. The doctor suggests that she must have poisoned herself. The magistrate not
es that her husband had had an affair but resists the doctor's conclusion at fir
st. Finally he accepts that the doctor is right and admits that the woman was hi
s own wife.
HAPPINESS
Two shepherds watch over a flock at night and the overseer from a big estate sit
s nearby. They discuss rumours of a local man possessed by the devil and of cach
es of treasure supposedly buried in the area. The overseer makes a sad and mocki
ng remark about the elusivess of earthly fortune and the inevitability of dying
without knowing what happiness is like. The older shepherd wonders why it's only
old men who look for treasure and what use earthly happiness is to men who migh
t die any day. The two shepherds and the sheep stand pondering together.
ON OFFICIAL DUTY
An examining magistrate and a doctor arrive in a village to conduct an inquest o
n a suicide. They are met by an old constable who takes them to view the corpse
in an old zemstvo hut. While the doctor leaves to visit a rich acquaintance, the
young magistrate remains with a local constable, brooding on the story of the s
uicide and the gulf between this life of official duty in the backwoods and his
dream of entering Moscow society as a proven professional. The doctor returns to
take the magistrate to stay with the rich acquaintance. He passes a pleasant ev

ening but is troubled by thought of whether humans are organically linked or jus
t bits of life, accidental fragments. The following morning the Constable arrive
s and asks them to do their duty by conducting the inquest. Without a word they
leave to do so.
-------------------MISERY
A dejected sledge-driver on a snowy night takes customers home. He tries to tell
them that his son died of a fever a few days ago but nobody is interested. At n
ight in the stables he feeds his mare and tells her about his son's death, invit
ing her to consider how she would feel if a colt of hers died. She munches, list
ens and breathes on his hands.
HUSH!
A 4th rate journalist spends the night writing an article. With farcical self-ag
grandisement he demands silence, tea and awed respect, surrounding himself with
busts of celebrated writers and railing at the agonies that writing brings. Tyra
nnizing and domineering over the little anthill that fate has put in his power,
how different is this despot here at home from the humble, meek, dull-witted lit
tle man we are accustomed to see in the editor's offices!
AN INCIDENT
Two children wake to find that their cat has had kittens. They treat them like d
olls, making houses for them out of boxes and allocating a toy horse to be their
father. As the narrator says, domestic animals play a scarcely noticed but undo
ubtedly beneficial part in the education and life of children. When their uncle
arrives with his dog Nero they decide that the dog, being alive, is a more suita
ble father than the toy horse. But while they are dining the footman comes in an
d announces that Nero has eaten the kittens. The adults are unmoved. Only the ch
ildren and the mother cat are affected by this incident.
CHAMPAGNE
The narrator recalls a time when he and his wife lived almost alone in a station
house in the steppe. There was no distraction but the women's faces in the pass
ing trains and the spiked vodka, but he had won two bottles of champagne in a be
t and he and his wife opened the first bottle on New Year's Eve. The bottle slip
ped from his hand but he caught it and laughed at his wife for superstitiously p
redicting bad luck. He walked out into the moonlit night, mocking the idea that
his life could get any worse than it already was. When he returned to the statio
n his wife's young aunt, a beautiful woman of easy virtue, had arrived on the la
te train. He started a devilish love affair with her and now he is on the street
.
THE LOTTERY TICKET
A middle class man, quite satisfied with his lot, discovers that his wife has on
e of the two numbers needed to win 75,000 roubles in the lottery. Before checkin
g whether she also has the second number, he fantasises about winning. First he
imagines a life of luxury in the country. Then he imagines travelling abroad. Bu
t the thought that his wife would be with him begrudging him every bit of her wi
nnings sours his mood. He notices for the first time that she has aged and is pl
ain while he is still young. He thinks of her grasping relatives who would want
a share of the money and hatred begins to stir in his breast. In triumph he find
s that she has not got the second number. The untidiness of their room suddenly
annoys him and he threatens to go out and hang himself from the nearest tree.
BAD WEATHER
Kvashin's wife and mother-in-law are staying in their summer villa in the rain,
missing Kvashin who is working and staying at the flat in town. The wife decides
to pay a surprise visit to Kvashin but comes back reporting that the flat is em
pty and Kvashin is deceiving them. Without their noticing, the weather clears an

d the sky becomes blue. Kvashin arrives and, having learned from his porter of h
is wife's visit to the flat, has a ready-made excuse for his absence. The mother
-in-law and wife look at each other in joyful astonishment, as though beyond all
hope and expectation they had found something precious, which they had lost. Kv
ashin thinks that the women are socially vulgar but it's nice to spend a day or
two of the week with them.
A PLAY
An author is visited by a woman who insists on reading aloud to him a play she h
as written. It begins by discussing whether education is good for the common peo
ple and quickly turns into romantic melodrama. The author fumes, lets his mind w
ander, drifts into dreamlike illusions. Finally, with a yell, he dashes a paperw
eight down on the woman's head. We are told that the jury acquitted him.
IN TROUBLE
The manager and staff of the town bank are arrested for fraud. Avdeyev, one of t
he committee of auditors, laughs at their downfall and sees no reason why he sho
uld be implicated since he only signed whatever papers he was asked to sign. He
has an unsecured loan from the bank but it's not his fault since the manager for
ced it on him. To his surprise he is brought to trial but his conscience is clea
r. Only his restless stomach and his aching leg register distress. The court pro
ceedings are a mystery to him and when he is sentenced to exile he assumes that
this is only a provisional finding. Only when his ruined wife and son come to se
e him off does he realise that his fate has been decided and that his past has g
one forever.
THE KISS
A regiment arrives in town and is invited to dinner at the house of a local reti
red General. Ryabovitch, a shy unprepossessing man, is daunted by the glittering
surroundings, which he barely manages to take in, other than to notice the impr
essively artificial performances of the General's welcoming family. He follows h
is colleagues to a game of billiards and, on his return from the games room, los
es his way. Stepping into a darkened room he is kissed by a young woman who is e
vidently awaiting her lover. Realising her mistake she flees, but the encounter
stimulates Ryabovitch's imagination so that everything suddenly has a newly heig
htened interest. It comes to him that love is both very ordinary and very deligh
tful. The regiment leaves town and when it returns there is no invitation back t
o the General's house. Ryabovitch's illusions fade away and he walks by the rive
r with a new awareness that the whole of life flows away like a pointless joke.
When he gets back to camp he learns that the General has after all summoned his
colleagues to dinner but he decides not to join them and goes to bed.
KASHTANKA
Kashtanka the dog loses her master, a drunken carpenter, and is taken in a by a
man who turns out to be a professional clown. In the clown's house are a cat, a
gander and a pig who practise tricks. One night death enters the house in the fo
rm of an invisible stranger and the gander dies, leaving the other animals with
an inkling that they too will one day die. Kashtanka must take the gander's plac
e in the clown's act but on her debut the carpenter and his son are in the audie
nce and she runs to them. Her period with the clown soon seems like a dream.
A LADY'S STORY
The female narrator remembers her youth in the country and Pyotr Sergeyitch who
rode gaily in the rain with her and talked nonsense about turreted castles and t
he taste of cucumbers. But he was poor and she had rank and wealth and when they
spent their winters in town he, like everyone else, seemed to shrink before her
eyes. Now he is aged and vaguely ill and she bursts into tears at the thought o
f her wasted life.
A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE

In a fifth century monastery lives a Father Superior with a wonderful gift for c
onveying the word of God to his monks. One night a drunken huntsman comes to the
monastery and chides the monks for failing to visit the local town where they c
ould help save fallen men. Impressed by this charge, the Father Superior goes in
to the town and doesn't return till three months later, looking greatly aged and
sorrowful. He describes the sins of the town, the wine, women and revelry, and
retreats to his cell. In the morning all the monks have fled to the town.
SLEEPY
A 13 year old nurse watches over her mistress' screaming baby, trying not to fal
l asleep from fatigue. Her consciousness registers memories of her father's deat
h, the baby's noise, a long road down which she and her mother must walk to find
a situation, the blows of her mistress and master as she fails to stay awake. A
day of grinding toil follows and then more of the same. Blearily she wonders wh
at ties her to this life of misery and discovers that it is the baby. She strang
les the baby and sleeps as soundly as the dead.
THE STEPPE
A merchant and a priest, leaving on a business trip, take the merchant's nephew
with them to drop him off at his new school. There is the endless steppe with a
distant windmill and a graceful poplar; a dirty inn with a Jewish innkeeper; the
merchant and the priest counting money at the table; a glimpse of a countess; t
he scent of hay, dry grass and late flowers; the moon floating over old burial m
ounds; the road dozens of yards wide; a wagon train in which the child rides whi
le the adults go to a farm on business; birds and hares and a man battering a sn
ake to death; the waggoners bathing in the river and fishing; a glass of tea in
the village shop followed by fish stew at the campfire; the story of two travell
ing icon-sellers murdered by reapers for a hundred roubles; midnight by the fire
and a passer-by who misses his new wife; a confrontation with a bully as a stor
m breaks; the boy terrified by the thunder and lightning; sheltering in a hut wi
th a watermelon to eat; a bout of fever as the boy arrives at the harbour town w
here his school will be. The merchant takes him to lodge with a distant friend o
f his mother and then, very rapidly, priest and merchant are both gone, taking a
ll the boy's experience of the world with them and leaving him asking what his n
ew life will be.
LIGHTS
A doctor spends a night in the hut of an engineer and transport student who are
building a railway across the steppe. The lights of the workers' huts, stretchin
g into the distance, remind the student of the desert camps in the Bible and of
the inevitable death that awaits all men. The engineer castigates the student fo
r such pessimism in one so young. He says that he himself used to be very please
d with the idea that life was pointless and death inevitable. But one day, havin
g seduced an unhappily married woman in his hometown, faithfully promised to go
away with her and then fled alone, he realised that all his clever philosophisin
g had led him to commit an act as bad as murder. He forced himself to return to
the woman and apologise to her. The student, unmoved, points out that that the e
ngineer nevertheless allows older men to be pessimists. Older men, says the engi
neer, see the inevitability of death as a reason to pity humankind. To the docto
r he says that the lights of the huts remind him of the thoughts of men that she
d no light on anything and vanish somewhere beyond old age. The doctor hears a v
oice telling him that there is no understanding anything in the world.
THE PARTY
It is Pyotr Dmitritch's name-day party. His very pregnant wife Olga is angry wit
h him for the way he has fallen into artificial poses and insincerity with her,
spouting conservative views and pretending to be unconcerned about a legal actio
n he faces, while confiding more openly in the young women with whom he likes to
flirt. She is angry too at the social play-acting of her guests and at her own
forced show of gracious hospitality. There is a boating party at which Olga feel

s a chill. At night she and her husband argue, she is suddenly in great pain and
her child is stillborn. Time seems to have slowed to a standstill and under the
influence of chloroform Olga feels a dull indifference to life.
A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AND OTHER STORIES
------------------------------------A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Vassilyev is a law student, a cautious and highly-wrought man obsessed with puri
ty, sin and suffering. Taken on an evening tour of the local brothels by two chu
ms, he loses his reason as he realises that the evils of prostitution and the pl
ight of the fallen women are treated as commonplace by everyone but him. It emer
ges that he has had similar breakdowns before and his friends take him to a doct
or who asks him a long series of questions, tests his reflexes and gives him bro
mide and morphia. He begins to feel easier.
THE SHOEMAKER AND THE DEVIL
Late at night, in a dozy state, a cobbler finishing a pair of shoes for an awkwa
rd customer resents his poverty and the jeers and insults he suffers. He takes t
he shoes to the customer and when he helps to put them on discovers that the cus
tomer has hooves and is the devil. Slily he praises the devil and bargains with
him to become a rich man at the cost of his soul. But life as a rich man turns o
ut to be uncomfortably constrained by manners and conventions and still leads ul
timately to the grave. The cobbler wakes up, realises he has been dreaming and t
hinks there is nothing in life for which one would sell one's soul to the devil.
THE BET
In an argument about the morality of capital punishment a banker bets a young la
wyer 2 million roubles that he could not survive solitary confinement. For 15 ye
ars the lawyer lives in a sealed building serviced with books, wine, tobacco etc
. The banker loses his fortune and, unable to pay the bet without bankrupting hi
mself, steals into the sealed building to kill the lawyer. He finds the lawyer a
sleep, much aged and sitting over a letter which states that 15 years of reading
great literature have made him contemptuous of what the outside world considers
freedom. He renounces the 2 million. The next morning the lawyer leaves the bui
lding hourse before the 15 years are up. The banker retrieves the letter and put
s it in a fireproof safe.
THE PRINCESS
The princess arrives for a visit at the monastery, very pleased with her own gra
ciousness and the sense this place gives her of her own modesty and good thought
s. She then encounters a doctor who harangues her for her vanity, her stupid act
s of loveless charity and her cruel treatment of everyone. She is startled to te
ars but is soon thinking how sweet it is to be misunderstood by everybody but Go
d. The next morning the doctor apologises for his outburst and, thinking how bli
ssful it is to forgive an enemy, she is conscious of a great happiness.
A DREARY STORY
An ageing professor of medical science diagnoses that he has only 6 months to li
ve. He is a name, respected by everyone, and proud of his power as a lecturer. B
ut his life with his wife and daughter is tedious and predictable, plagued by in
somnia and money troubles, enlivened only by his visits with Katya, whose guardi
an he was, a trusting child who later became an actress before losing faith in t
he theatre, burying an illegitimate child and attempting suicide. Katya plays ho
stess to the Professor and to one of his colleagues, a clever cynical philologis
t. When the Professor goes to Kharkov to confirm his suspicion that his daughter
's suitor (whom she has secretly married) is a fraud, Katya appears at his hotel
desperate for his advice on whether to run away with the philologist. By now th
e Professor has realised that his celebrity is hollow, that in three months' tim
e the newspapers who laud him will be recording his death and that he lacks any
general idea of life. Katya begs him, as a clever man and a teacher, to advise h

er, but he has nothing to say and realises that her fate is to have discovered h
er lack of any general idea even earlier in life than he has. She walks away wit
hout looking back.
THE HORSE-STEALERS
Caught in a snowstorm the hospital assistant Yergunov rides his borrowed horse t
o an inn of ill repute and shelters there with a pair of notorious thieves and t
he innkeeper's daughter. He simultaneously flaunts his social superiority and tr
ies to act the lad, telling tall tales and earning the others' contempt. One of
the peasants dances furiously with the girl and taunts her by threatening to mur
der her and steal her money. She helps him steal Yergunov's horse and belongings
. Yergunov alternately kisses and beats her and leaves on foot. In the privacy o
f his own thoughts he envies the peasant's wild outlaw life and formidable perso
nality. Eighteen months later, sacked from the hospital, Yergunov has become a p
etty thief.
GUSEV AND OTHER STORIES
----------------------GUSEV
The sick-bay of a ship returning from the Far East. Gusev is a discharged soldie
r and a peasant, a man of simple impulsive pleasures who dreams feverishly of sn
ow and home. Pavel Ivanitch is a priest and a compulsive protestor against any i
njustice. Without much fuss they die. We see Gusev's body sinking into the ocean
among the fish and the sky above him is a tender colour which human speech can
hardly name.
PEASANT WIVES
A merchant and a little lad stop to spend the night at the house of Dyudya, an i
nnkeeper and petty businessman who lives with his two daughters-in-law. The merc
hant tells how he came to adopt the lad: he had an affair with the boy's mother
who, to his annoyance, fell in love with him before poisoning her husband and dy
ing in jail. Out of pity the merchant adopted the boy. It turns out that one of
Dyudya's daughters-in-law is having an affair with the local priest's son and sh
e suggests to the other that they poison her husband and their father-in-law. Th
e morning breaks bleak, noisy and dirty. The lad can't find his cap and is scare
d of being beaten.
THE DUEL
Laevsky is an idle pleasure-seeker, employed in the government service in a godf
orsaken spot in the Caucasus to which he has brought his lover Nadyezhda Fyodoro
vna. His circle includes the bluff army doctor Samoylenko and the Darwinian zool
ogist Von Koren who believes that weak-willed men like Laevsky corrupt society a
nd should be exterminated. Laevsky is sick of living in this outpost and despise
s his lover who, in her turn, secretly has affairs with the chief of police and
the local shopkeeper's son. In an attempt to escape to Petersburg Laevsky tries
to borrow money from Samoylenko but ends up abusing him and, in a sideswipe, ins
ulting Von Koren who challenges him to a duel. On the eve of the duel the jealou
s shopkeeper's son arranges for Laevsky to catch his lover in bed with the chief
of police. The duel goes ahead but a deacon who is friend and foil to Von Koren
shouts out in dismay and Von Koren misses his shot. Chastened by his experience
s Laevsky settles down to a life of toil with his lover whom he now marries whil
e Von Koren sets off in dangerous seas on a zoological mission to the Far East.
THE GRASSHOPPER
Olga Ivanovna, a flighty woman who lives among a group of artistic celebrities a
nd has modest talents of her own, marries Dymov, the young doctor who has attend
ed her father. She shows him off in a patronising way to her artistic friends an
d sets up home with a few fashionable gestures and not much money. While he work
s she travels about with her friends and on a Volga steamer starts an affair wit
h Ryabovsky. But they get bored with each other, she dreams prosaically of home

and returns to her husband who, soon suspecting her infidelity, becomes melancho
ly and withdrawn. The affair drifts on but she is demanding and selfish and only
sours Ryabovsky's good humour. Dymov wants to forgive her but she is unable to
share his joy at a professional success and becomes increasingly jealous of the
philandering Ryabovsky. Dymov contracts diphtheria at the hospital, apparently o
n purpose, and only as he dies does Olga realise that he was a great man of scie
nce and an extraordinary and rare person.
AFTER THE THEATRE
After seeing a performance of Eugene Onegin with her mother, Nadya immediately s
its down in her bedroom and writes a letter like that of the heroine in the play
: 'I love you, but you do not love me...' She imagines writing the letter to one
of the two suitors who love her and whom she does not love. Unrequited love is
so much more fascinating than when two people are equally in love, and Nadya fee
ls sorry for herself, shedding quivering tears even as great joy fills her over
the role she is playing. She begins to laugh and in order to justify her laughte
r thinks of a funny story of a poodle and a crow. Not knowing what to do with he
r immense joy she looks at the icon and twice murmurs Oh Lord God.
IN EXILE
Two men exiled to Siberia - an old Russian and a young Tatar - sit by the fire a
t night on the riverbank where they operate the ferry service. The Tatar has bee
n wrongly convicted, misses his wife and mother but believes that they will come
and join him. The old Russian argues that it's better to reconcile yourself to
having nothing. He tells the story of a disgraced squire who lives across the ri
ver and whose hopes have been repeatedly set too high: he wanted to raise crops
but the land is barren; he was briefly joined by his wife but she deserted him;
his daughter became a solace to him but has now fallen ill. Out of the dark the
squire summons the ferry to fetch a doctor for his daughter. The old Russian moc
ks the squire but the Tatar turns on him, crying that the squire is good and ali
ve and that the old Russian is bad and dead. Later the Tatar can be heard weepin
g and the old Russian chuckles and says that he'll get used to it.
NEIGHBOURS AND OTHER STORIES
---------------------------NEIGHBOURS
Pyotr Mihalitch's sister Zina has absconded to live with Vlassitch, a married ne
ighbour, leaving her family in despair. In a rage Pyotr goes to have it out with
Vlassitch but is too weak and indecisive to speak his mind and ends up listenin
g passively to Vlassitch's trite thoughts about free love and other liberal ques
tions of the day. Vlassitch, who is regarded as a free-thinker but brings no ori
ginality or moving power to his supposedly independent views, tells how he marri
ed his wife as a noble gesture after a fellow officer of his regiment had abando
ned her.
Zina enters and there is conversation about past inhabitants of Vlassitch's hous
e, cruel forceful men who have committed brutal acts. Pyotr is unable to reprima
nd his sister and ends by telling her that she has done well. Riding home, along
the bank of a pond, he thinks about his life and concludes that he has never sa
id or acted upon what he really thought, and that other people have repaid him i
n the same way.
WARD NO. 6
Ward No 6 is the lunatic ward of the local hospital, occupied by the paranoid ph
ilosopher Ivan Dmitritch and a few others. Andrey Yefimitch, the doctor, has lon
g become disillusioned by his futile professional battle with sickness and death
. In conversations with his friend the postmaster Mihail Averyanitch and then wi
th the paranoid philosopher he argues that death and suffering are the inescapab
le human condition and that there is no afterlife (cf the non-resistance to evil
in Excellent People). Ivan Dmitritch mocks his arguments, dismissing them as ty
pically Russian laziness, fakirism and stupefaction, but the doctor is so stimul

ated by the lunatic's conversation that the hospital staff believe he is losing
his sanity. The postmaster persuades him to join him on a trip to Moscow, Peters
burg and Warsaw for the sake of his health but the doctor finds his friend's ted
ious and voluble company insufferable. When the postmaster loses his money gambl
ing the doctor lends him 500 roubles and they return home. The doctor's assistan
t has taken over the hospital and he and the postmaster provoke the doctor to an
outburst which results in his being confined as a patient in Ward No 6. He is b
eaten by the hospital guard and dies the next day of an apoplectic stroke. As he
dies he realises that he doesn't want immortality and after a fleeting vision o
f a running deer he passes into oblivion forever. Only his housemaid and the pos
tmaster attend the funeral.
TERROR
Dmitri Petrovitch is a farmer and a former Petersburg official who conceives an
excessive friendship for the narrator, a man who doesn't want to listen to his c
onfidences and who finds Dmitri's wife very attractive though he is not in love
with her. Dogged by a strange drunk called Forty Martyrs, whom both have previou
sly employed and sacked, Dmitri and the narrator sit in a churchyard discussing
the unknown. Dmitri finds ordinary life terrifying and inexplicable. "My whole l
ife is nothing else than a daily effort to deceive myself and other people." He
confides that his wife doesn't love him and he doesn't understand why she marrie
d him. That night the narrator makes love to Dmitri's wife but she wants a great
serious passion while the narrator wants only a flash of lightning. As she is l
eaving the room Dmitri stumbles on them. He again says that he understands nothi
ng and leaves with the incoherent Forty Martyrs. Infected by Dmitri's terror, th
e narrator too understands nothing. He leaves and never sees the couple again, t
hough he understands they are still living together.
AN ANONYMOUS STORY
The narrator, a sickly revolutionary, takes a job as footman to Orlov, son of a
Government figure on whom the narrator wishes to spy. Orlov and his circle are w
orld-weary cynics and when Zinaida Fyodorovna abandons her husband for him Orlov
's world is thrown into distasteful chaos. Observing the humiliations to which s
he is subjected, the narrator despises Orlov, feels Zinaida Fyodorovna's anguish
and, unnoticed, loses his revolutionary convictions. When Orlov's father pays a
visit the narrator recognises the opportunity to assassinate him but can no lon
ger bring himself to do it. At last the lies and evasions of the Orlov set becom
e unbearable. The narrator, having written Orlov a letter exposing himself and a
ccusing Orlov of being afraid of life, confronts Zinaida Fyodorovna with the tru
th of Orlov's deceptions. She is pregnant. He helps her escape and they travel t
o Venice. He has an attack of pleurisy but convalescing in Venice he revels in l
ife. He tells Zinaida Fyodorovna of his adventures as a revolutionary and a seam
an and she concludes that he belongs to a special class of men. He conceals from
her the waning of his convictions and later, in Nice, she accuses him of draggi
ng her away from Petersburg on a falsehood. She gives birth to a girl, poisons h
erself and dies. The narrator takes on the care of the child but his health is f
ailing and he goes to Orlov to arrange for her future custody. Orlov is amused b
y the memory of the narrator's letter, admits the charge of cowardice but admoni
shes the narrator for his irrationality in caring about such things instead of t
aking an objective and historical view of life. The child is to be fixed up with
a schoolkeeper and sits unblinking as though she knew her fate was being decide
d.
THE TWO VOLODYAS
Sofya Lyovna rides home intoxicated from a party, accompanied by her husband Vla
dimir, who is middle-aged, her friend Vladimir (they are the two Volodyas) and h
er friend Rita. She convinces herself that she loves her husband and has not mar
ried him, as everyone says, 'par dpit'. At a nunnery on the way home she stops to
greet her friend Olga and takes her for a brief ride in the snow. The frivolous
ness of this act, and the solemnity of the nunnery, bring her to her senses and

she knows that she doesn't love her husband. The question of whether God exists
or not and the inevitability of death frighten her. The next day young Vladimir
calls and, thinking of Olga, she asks whether burying oneself alive is the only
solution to the problem of life. He despises her for putting on such airs and sh
e knows it, but he puts his arm round her and they have a brief fling before he
throws her over. She consoles herself with regular visits to Olga who wearies of
her, telling her mechanically that all will pass and God will forgive her.
THE BLACK MONK AND OTHER STORIES
-------------------------------THE BLACK MONK
Kovrin, a philosopher at the university, is suffering from nervous exhaustion. H
e recuperates on the estate of his former guardian Pesotsky, who has barbered hi
s trees into bizarre shapes, as if in mockery of Nature. Kovrin marries Tanya, t
he daughter of the house, and becomes a university professor, all the while feel
ing that he has betrayed his genius by keeping healthy and leading a normal life
. This obsession is strengthened by hallucinations when he comes to imagine hims
elf being visited by the Black Monk of the title. This visionary figure comes gl
iding over the grounds and tells Kovrin that he is ill because his genius puts h
im above the common herd and is incompatible with mortal love and that he will s
oon die. Kovrin is in a state of nervous breakdown, and on the monk s final visit
he falls to the ground spitting blood: his frail human body could no longer serve
as the mortal garb of genius. He dies with a blissful smile
upon his face.
A WOMAN'S KINGDOM
It is Christmas. Anna, of poor origin, has inherited her uncle's factory. With o
nly her aunt and no men to assist her in running the business of 2000 employees
she feels out of her depth and frequently outwitted. Having made 1500 roubles in
a lawsuit she looks for an appropriate employee to receive charity but ends by
being disgusted by the clerk whose begging letter she acts on. Only the clerk's
lodger, an intelligent man who mends watches for a hobby, appeals to her. The ba
rrister and councillor who call for dinner are boors and the barrister cheats he
r financially. She longs deperately to have a husband and can't bear the idea th
at her life will continue unchanged till she dies. Why not marry the watch mende
r, someone jokes. It is what she has been thinking so she agrees, but everyone l
aughs and it comes to her that the idea is vain and senseless. There is no one w
ho would be suitable for her in her equivocal station. She and her maid, who als
o nurses a hopeless love, weep together.
ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE
Yakov is a coffin maker who resents every missed opportunity to make money out o
f death. He is asked to play fiddle in the local Jewish orchestra but loathes Ro
thschild the flautist and comes to hate Jews. His wife becomes fatally ill and,
as he makes her coffin, she asks him if he remembers how they used to take their
baby to the willows by the river. Asked to play in the orchestra again he attac
ks Rothschild but then, by the river, he remembers what his wife said and thinks
how everything has declined since they used to bring the baby here. He plays a
mournful song which Rothschild overhears and on his deathbed leaves his fiddle t
o Rothschild who often plays the mournful song to great applause.
THE STUDENT
A theology student, returning home on a cold Easter night, stops to warm himself
by a bonfire. He relates to the two widows standing by the fire the story of Pe
ter's betrayal of Christ. One of the widows weeps, demonstrating by her sympathy
, it seems to him, that "the past is linked to the present by an unbroken chain
of events". The thought makes life seem wonderful and endows it with sublime mea
ning.
THE TEACHER OF LITERATURE

A riding party, including Nikitin the young schoolteacher and Masha whom he love
s, spend a day enjoying the fine weather and scenery. Over dinner Varya, Masha's
older sister, is tiresomely pedantic, a guest admonishes Nikitin for never havi
ng read Lessing, and the family dogs are a constant irritant. But because he is
in love everything at the house pleases Nikitin. The next day he returns and pro
poses to Masha who accepts him. His diary records the start of a blissful marrie
d life, but one night a chance remark at a gambling table reminds him that he ha
s done nothing to earn this happiness. He begins to yearn to do something worthy
and to be annoyed by the stupidity all around him. His tedious companion the ge
ography teacher dies and pedantic Varya weeps because no one will marry her. Spr
ing begins as exquisitely as last year but he sees himself surrounded by vulgari
ty and longs to escape.
AT A COUNTRY HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES
-----------------------------------AT A COUNTRY HOUSE
Rashevitch is a middle-aged windbag whom people avoid. Meier the new deputy exam
ining magistrate is a rare exception, but Rashevitch inadvertently insults him b
y railing against people of low birth without realising that Meier's own family
were of simple working stock. Rashevitch had hoped that his daughter Genya might
find a husband in Meier. Genya and her sister hate their father for having scar
ed off a desirable suitor. After an agonising night Rashevitch writes a letter o
f apology to Genya, knowing that he is only doing it out of malice and affectati
on. From the next room he hears Genya calling him a toad.
THE HEAD-GARDENER'S STORY
At a flower sale on Count N.'s estate, the head gardener tells the story of Thom
son, a doctor who was such a good man that no one could conceive of wishing him
harm. Even the bandits wouldn't rob him. One day Thomson was found dead in a rav
ine. It looked like murder but everone decided he must have died in an accident
because no one would be evil enough to kill him. Later, a vagrant was caught try
ing to sell Thomson's snuffbox. The police found the doctor's bloody shirt under
his bed. The vagrant was put on trial but at the last minute the judge acquitte
d him because he could not admit the thought that a man exists who would dare to
murder the doctor.
THREE YEARS
Alexei Laptev, son of a wealthy Moscow merchant, falls in love with the daughter
of the doctor who is caring for his sister. She accepts his marriage proposal o
ut of duty and a desire to exchange her dull provincial life for the attractions
of Moscow, but he knows that she does not love - is repelled by - him. Once mar
ried, they both suffer. The warehouse of the family business is a place of slave
ry and misery where Alexei was regularly beaten by his hated father. Their socia
l circle is mediocre and the round of concerts and art exhibitions gives no plea
sure. Alexei's sister dies, as does the daughter the couple soon produce. Alexei s
brother Fyodor goes mad and his father is blind. Forced to get to grips with th
e family business, Alexei overcomes the clerks' obstructions and is charmed by h
is success. But he is tempted to run away rather than turn into a dull sour busi
nessman. The next day he calls on his wife at her country dacha. She has softene
d and tells him that she loves him but he feels as if he has been married ten ye
ars and he wants his lunch. What does the future hold for them? He concludes tha
t time will tell.
THE HELPMATE
Nikolay knows his wife is unfaithful. He gets the maid to help him look for a te
legram and finds one on her table, in English, which praises his wife's little f
oot. She comes home complaining that her bag with 15 roubles has been stolen. Ni
kolay is irritated and eventually tells her he will give her 25 roubles if she w
ill only shut up. He feels old and likely to die soon, and after a scene with he

r he offers her a divorce and tells her she is free. She tells him he is just tr
ying to get rid of her and angrily refuses the divorce. He spends the night wond
ering how he ever fell in with his predatory wife and her predatory mother. In t
he morning the maid brings a message that the wife is waiting for her 25 roubles
.
WHITEBROW
A famished she-wolf tries to catch a lamb from a smallholding but only gets a sm
all puppy which becomes attached to her and follows her back to her lair. She is
hungry enough to consider eating it but the smell offends her. The next night i
t follows her back to the smallholding and its bark alerts the keeper, a comic f
igure who often marches about reciting inane phrases. He fires a gun into the da
rkness and tells his overnight guest that the hole in the sheepcote roof must ha
ve been made by his dog Whitebrow who is stupid. I do detest fools, he says.
ANNA ON THE NECK
Young Anna is obliged to marry tedious middle-aged official Modest Alexeitch whe
n her father's drinking threatens to ruin the family. She is scared of her husb
and who gives her no money and is pompous and inflexible. However, her late moth
er, who had been a governess, taught Anna the tricks of social success, female b
eauty and flirtation. At a charity ball she uses these tricks to such effect tha
t a string of men begin to call on her. Her husband is abashed by her success an
d she calls him a blockhead. When her family see her driving about town in style
, her father makes to shout at her but his sons hush him.
MURDER
Matvey used to be employed at the tile works, where he was a chorister and a rel
igious obsessive, until his health failed him. Now he lives in a state of mutual
loathing with his cousin Yakov, who runs an inn, and with Yakov's daughter and
sister Aglaya. Having been an extreme ascetic, with a reputation (he claims) for
healing the sick and a sideline in fornication, he was admonished by his boss f
or religious pride and now deprecates excessive Christian zeal. Yazov follows th
e strict letter of the Church ritual, not in the hope of being blessed but for f
orm's sake and because man cannot live without faith. One day Matvey insists on
taking oil with his potatoes during Lent and an argument ensues in which Yakov a
nd Aglaya bludgeon him to death. Their crime is soon discovered and they are sen
t to the penal colony on Sakhalin. Yakov is one of a crew despatched to load coa
l onto a passing steamer. Now, surrounded by the sufferings of many races, he ha
s begun to pray again and sees the savagery and ignorance of his native district
for what it is, even while he longs to return there and save just one man from
ruin so that, for just one day, he might be free of suffering.
ARIADNE
On a steamer trip the author is accosted by Shamohin, a handsome man who opines
that Russians are all idealists, which is why women always disappoint them. He t
ells the story of his own relationship with Ariadne, beautiful sister of a penni
less estate owner, whom he describes as fascinating, cold, sensualist, cunning a
nd ruthless, a liar, in love with her own body and full of vain prattle about he
r non-existent artistic talents. In youth he fell in love with her but she found
him too prudent and cautious and went off to Italy with Lubkov, a dashing marri
ed man with no money. Shamohin tried to deceive himself that the two were not lo
vers and financed their affair by loans to Lubkov. Then, when Lubkov disappeared
, Ariadne and Shamohin started an affair but it has left him deep in debt. He co
ncludes that through the emancipation movement women are regressing to their pri
mitive condition, dedicated only to vanquishing men, and will drag culture down
with them. The author tells him not to generalise. At Yalta the two men encounte
r each other again and Shamohin is elated because Ariadne may be about to leave
him for a Prince.

THE LITTLE TRILOGY & OTHER STORIES (1896-98)

-------------------------------------------AN ARTIST'S STORY
The narrator is a landscape artist idling on the estate of his friend Belokurov.
Nearby is the home of the Volchaninovs, a mother and two daughters. The older d
aughter, Lydia, is a teacher and social activist. The narrator criticises her, a
rguing that the medical centers and schools she supports are, under present cond
itions, just another means to enslave the peasantry. Lydia replies, "It's true w
e are not saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we do
all we can, and--we're right." The narrator falls in love with the younger daugh
ter but she feels obliged to tell Lydia who arranges for her to be sent away. Th
e narrator never sees them again, although he imagines that the younger daughter
is thinking of him somewhere.
MY LIFE
Misail renounces the "privilege of capital and education", with its bribery and
corruption, to live by his hands as a railway worker and a painter. Most of his
set repudiate him but a shallow idealistic woman admires and marries him. They l
ive together but the local peasantry steal from them and undermine the woman's e
fforts to build them a school. She becomes disgusted and leaves. Meanwhile Misai
l's sister gets pregnant and is fatally ill. He reports her plight to his aliena
ted father who blames him for setting a bad example. After her death Misail visi
ts her grave with her daughter.
PEASANTS
A Moscow waiter and his family are forced to move back to his peasant home when
he becomes ill. The story juxtaposes the bestiality of peasant life with the Chr
istian piety of peasant belief. The man dies, his wife and daughter start back t
o Moscow, and Russia rolls on forever. 'And now she felt sorry for all these peo
ple, painfully so, and as she walked on she kept looking back at the huts.'
THE PETCHENYEG
A retired Cossack officer, now a farmer, befriends a man on a train and invites
him homw for the night. The man is a vegetarian and the farmer thinks how good i
t would be to have a principle like that to guide him through life. His own conv
ersation is about the stupidity and dulness of his wife and children, and incide
nts of casual violence and depravity that he has witnessed. The visitor holds hi
s tongue until the last moment when he can't help bursting out "You have bored m
e to death!" The farmer is overcome with confusion, sits meditating on the intel
lectual tendencies of the day and finally takes a nap.
AT HOME
A young woman returns to her estate on the steppes following the death of her fa
ther. At first the steppes fill her with ideas of freedom and tranquillity. But
social life is dull and there is an undercurrent of abuse of the peasantry. The
girl's aunt dismisses a worker the girl has befriended because he is illegitima
te. The girl is outraged but tells herself there is nothing she can do. In her f
rustration she in turn lashes out verbally at one of the house staff. Realising
that she is going to pieces she decides to get a grip on herself by marrying a d
octor she doesn't like and pledging herself to good works she considers futile.
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS [IN THE CART]
A schoolmistress is riding home in a horse and cart. She has been working, witho
ut pleasure or vocation, for so long that she has forgotten her early life in Mo
scow. On her way home she meets a handsome but fading and ineffectual landowner
and thinks how different life would be for both of them if they were married. Th
e roads are muddy and treacherous. She thinks of the corruption, incompetence an
d backbiting that surround her at the school. Her cart driver takes her through
a ford where she is soaked and the provisions she has brought from town get wet.
In front of her is a railway station at which she sees a woman who reminds her

of her own mother. Suddenly Moscow comes back to her in great detail and she cri
es with happiness at the thought that her life as a schoolmistress has just been
a bad dream. Then she is summoned back to the cart and the vision vanishes.
THE MAN IN A CASE
Burkin (the schoolmaster) tells Ivan Ivanovitch (the vet) about a recently decea
sed Greek master, Byelikov, who was so cautious and scared of life that he seeme
d to live in a protective case of galoshes, umbrella, flannel vests, dark specta
cles. Byelikov hated any transgression of any rules and terrorised his colleague
s by inflicting his fussy ways on them. Then a hearty Little Russian woman and h
er brother arrived in town and Byelikov fell in love with her. The brother, on t
he other hand, despised Byelikov. A quarrel arose between them when Byelikov saw
the woman and her brother out bicycling. The brother threw Byelikov down the st
airs and the woman laughed at him. Byelikov took to his bed, died and was laid o
ut in his final protective case, a coffin. A coda follows in which Burkin and Iv
an Ivanovitch reflect on the story: the latter says that we all spend our lives
among trivial, fussy people talking nonsense and that this too is like being sea
led in a case that none of us can escape.
GOOSEBERRIES
Burkin and Ivan Ivanovitch, caught in a rain storm, shelter at Alehin's house. F
or weeks Alehin has been too busy to think even of washing himself. Ivan Ivanovi
tch swims in the millpond and is blissfully happy. Then he recalls how he and hi
s brother were happy as small children before they moved to the city. His brothe
r set his heart on buying a farm, returning to the country and growing gooseberr
ies. To achieve his dream he married a rich woman he didn't love who soon died.
Last year Ivan Ivanovitch visited him and found him putting on the airs of a gre
at landowner and flattering himself on the quality of his gooseberries which wer
e in fact sour. Ivan Ivanovitch reflects on the nature of happiness, observing t
hat it always depends on others' silent unhappiness and that the real object of
life is not to be happy but to do good. The story pleases no one but Alehin cons
iders that he has been told something interesting that has no bearing on his har
d-working life. They go to bed but Burkin can't sleep.
ABOUT LOVE
Alehin observes that his lovely maid Pelagea is in love with the drunken lout he
employs as a cook. Love is a great mystery, he says, before relating the great
love of his own life, which came after he had taken on his infertile farm and de
dicated himself to slaving over it. He fell in with the vice-president of the ci
rcuit court, whom he liked for his good nature despite finding him a shallow-min
ded mediocrity. Alehin fell in love with the man's wife but didn't declare himse
lf for fear that his "gentle, sad love" would lead to the ruin of her life, and
"she apparently reasoned in the same way". Their relationship became irritable a
nd unhappy. At last when she and her husband had to move away Alehin could not s
top himself from kissing her passionately on the train. His listeners are sorry
that such a kind clever man should be reduced to endless labouring on his farm.
IONITCH
A physician in a provincial town falls in love with the daughter of a family of
middlebrow socialites. As a tease she asks him to meet her in the cemetery at ni
ght but doesn't show up. Finally, she rejects his suit coldly, saying that she m
ust go to Moscow and study at the conservatory. Four years later, the doctor has
grown corpulent and built a big practice. The girl returns, knowing that she ha
s no musical talent, and tries to rekindle their affair, but he becomes irritate
d and says to himself, "What a jolly good thing I didn't marry her!"
A DOCTOR'S VISIT & OTHER STORIES (1898-1904)
-------------------------------------------A DOCTOR'S VISIT

A junior doctor goes to visit the sickly daughter of a wealthy factory owner. He
regards the factory as a prison in which any worker improvements are no better
than treatment for an incurable illness. The patient is ugly and miserable but h
e warms to her. She confesses her own view of her case as someone who has no ill
ness but is weary and frightened and has no friends. He tells her that she is a
good, interesting woman and that life will be better for the generation to come.
The next morning is a beautiful spring day and he relishes it as he drives home
.
A VISIT TO FRIENDS
A successful Moscow lawyer gets a letter from three sisters he knew as a young m
an. They implore him to visit, with the hope that he will take pity and help the
m save their family estate. Through poor management, their estate must be sold a
nd he thinks about the life he might have led had he married one of the sisters.
In the end, he returns to Moscow to his work, never to think of them again.
THE DARLING
The title character is a plump, friendly girl whom everyone wants to squeeze and
call, "You darling!" She marries the manager of the amusement park, and lives h
appily, parroting his opinions about the theater. When Kukin dies she repeats th
e process with a timber merchant and then with a vet. When the vet leaves she is
depressed, with nothing to talk about. Then the vet returns with his family. Sh
e becomes attached to his young son and has something to talk about again, shari
ng his troubles in his lessons, learning them herself and denouncing the schools
for making the boy s life a misery.
THE NEW VILLA
The engineer in charge of building a bridge across the river outside a village i
s persuaded by his wife to buy some land and build a cottage for his family. The
y attempt to befriend the local people, but the villagers continually complain a
bout their own poverty, raid the property around the cottage and demand compensa
tion for damage caused by the engineer's livestock. The engineer and his wife ar
e full of goodwil and the wife explains that she herself is of peasant stock and
, although now rich, she is not well or happy. Some villagers, led by the blacks
mith, advise them to be patient--in the long run, the peasants will learn to acc
ept them. But the blacksmith is an odd person who misunderstands everything, and
after a fight between two peasants outside the cottage, the wife returns to Mos
cow, the engineer sells up and a new less kindly owner moves in. Walking home on
e day the peasants wonder why they never got on with the engineer even though he
and his wife and the peasants themselves are all good people. One of the peasan
ts observes that they never asked for a bridge in the first place.
THE LADY WITH THE DOG
Gurov, a Moscow bank worker, is unhappy in his marriage, frequently has affairs
and considers women to be of 'a lower race'. In Yalta he starts an affair with A
nna, the young wife of a provincial 'flunkey'. They walk and take drives to Orea
nda. Eventually the husband sends for Anna to come home, saying that something i
s wrong with his eyes. Back in Moscow Gurov expects to forget her cannot do so.
He goes to her town and finds her with her husband at the theatre. Frightened, s
he begs him to leave but promises to come to see him in Moscow. She makes excuse
s to come to Moscow, telling her husband that she is going there to see a doctor
, which he "believes and does not believe". Gurov realizes that for the first ti
me in his life he has actually fallen in love, and wonders how they can continue
. While they talk of finding a plan, the story ends without a resolution.
ON OFFICIAL DUTY
An examining magistrate and a doctor arrive in a village to conduct an inquest o
n a suicide. They are met by an old constable who takes them to view the corpse
in an old zemstvo hut. While the doctor leaves to visit a rich acquaintance, the
young magistrate remains with a local constable, brooding on the story of the s

uicide and the gulf between this life of official duty in the backwoods and his
dream of entering Moscow society as a proven professional. The doctor returns to
take the magistrate to stay with the rich acquaintance. He passes a pleasant ev
ening but is troubled by thought of whether humans are organically linked or jus
t bits of life, accidental fragments. The following morning the Constable arrive
s and asks them to do their duty by conducting the inquest. Without a word they
leave to do so.
AT CHRISTMAS TIME
An illiterate peasant woman hires a local man to write a letter to her daughter,
who married and moved to Petersburg four years earlier. The scribe fills the le
tter with nonsense. In the second part of the story, the letter has arrived at t
he health farm where the son-in-law works. He brings the letter to his wife, who
bursts into tears and cries out, "Queen of Heaven, Holy Mother and Defender, ta
ke us away from here!" Her husband recalls that several times she had given him
letters to send to her parents, but he never bothered to do it. In the end the w
ife stops crying, "very much frightened of him--oh, how frightened of him!"
IN THE RAVINE
The village of Ukleevo, located in a ravine, is contaminated by pollutants from
its three calico factories and inhabited by discontented peasants. Grigory, who
runs the grocery store, seems to favour his younger son's hard-working wife Aksi
nya. His wife, Varvara is charitable and good. His elder son Anisim visits unexp
ectedly and they decide to marry him off to young, beautiful but simple Lipa. La
ter, Anisim is jailed for counterfeiting and Grigory, who has unknowingly paid h
is workers with the forged coins, loses his standing in the community. Lipa give
s birth to a baby son, Nikifor. When Grigory leaves his property to his grandson
, Aksinya, in a fit of rage towards Lipa, pours boiling water on Nikifor, who di
es in hospital. Three years later, Aksinya has become powerful, with her own bus
iness. Grigory is left without money and has lost faith in life. Lipa leaves the
Tsybukin home and moves to be with her mother. They see Grigory on the street a
nd give him food, crossing themselves as they walk away.
THE BISHOP
The Bishop is unwell but goes through the motions of his office. His mother visi
ts with a young niece. Like everyone else she is constrained and formal in his c
ompany. Nobody speaks to him genuinely, simply, as to another human being except
the old servant Sisoy who is a tedious old man. The little niece cries and tell
s him that the family is very poor and needs money. He promises to talk at Easte
r and give help, but his illness worsens, he has typhus and as he gets thinner a
nd weaker he tells himself it is good to be turning so insignificant. His mother
too forgets now that he is a bishop and kisses him as though he were a child. O
n the day before Easter Sunday he dies. A month later a successor is appointed a
nd nobody thinks anymore of the dead bishop.
BETROTHED
A young woman living on her grandmother's estate, with a great desire for educat
ion and independence, is engaged to a vacuous and unmotivated man. Sasha, an ill
and impoverished young man who is spending the summer on the estate persuades h
er to run away with him to Petersburg and attend the University. After the schoo
l term, she returns for the summer, but things will never be the same, the famil
y receives word that Sasha has died of tuberculosis, and she packs to leave the
estate "as she supposed forever."

MISERY
HUSH!
EXCELLENT PEOPLE
AN INCIDENT

CHAMPAGNE
THE LOTTERY TICKET
THE EXAMINING MAGISTRATE
HAPPINESS
BAD WEATHER
A PLAY
IN TROUBLE
THE KISS
KASHTANKA
A LADY'S STORY
A STORY WITHOUT A TITLE
SLEEPY
THE STEPPE
LIGHTS
THE BEAUTIES
THE PARTY
A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
THE SHOEMAKER AND THE DEVIL
THE BET
THE PRINCESS
A DREARY STORY
THE HORSE-STEALERS
GUSEV
PEASANT WIVES
THE DUEL
THE WIFE
THE GRASSHOPPER
AFTER THE THEATRE
IN EXILE
NEIGHBOURS
WARD NO. 6
TERROR
AN ANONYMOUS STORY
THE TWO VOLODYAS
THE BLACK MONK
A WOMAN'S KINGDOM
ROTHSCHILD'S FIDDLE
THE STUDENT
THE TEACHER OF LITERATURE
AT A COUNTRY HOUSE
THE HEAD-GARDENER'S STORY
THREE YEARS
THE HELPMATE
WHITEBROW
ANNA ON THE NECK
MURDER
ARIADNE
AN ARTIST'S STORY
MY LIFE
PEASANTS
THE PETCHENYEG
AT HOME
THE SCHOOLMISTRESS [IN THE CART]
THE MAN IN A CASE
GOOSEBERRIES

ABOUT LOVE
IONITCH
A DOCTOR'S VISIT
A VISIT TO FRIENDS
THE DARLING
THE NEW VILLA
THE LADY WITH THE DOG
ON OFFICIAL DUTY
AT CHRISTMAS TIME
IN THE RAVINE
THE BISHOP
BETROTHED