Another travel story, this one in the comfort of a first class train cabin. It starts off with a grotesque but certainly memorable detail: The passenger of the title, Krikunov, tells his seatmate that his father used to like have his heels tickled by peasants after eating dinner. Wow!
The story is fairly simple, I suppose: Krikunov believes himself to be a person of some eminence and renown; he is an engineer and has built bridges and, presumably, many notable edifices. But his name is relatively little known and he is irritated that so many less-honorable people–writers, actors and the like–enjoy a fame that eludes him.
He’s mainly gassing to pass the time – he says as much himself at the beginning of the story, saying that he likes empty talk on a full stomach. (Note to self: Don’t advertise the contents of a narrative as being empty talk if you want to keep your reader reading.)
Anyway, it turns out his cabin mate (referred to, archaically enough, as his “vis-a-vis”) doesn’t know Krikunov’s name. But then again, neither does Krikunov know his name, either, so there. Hahaha. End of story.
This one didn’t do much for me.
READ THIS? READ THAT!
One thing that Chekhov loved to do was skewer pompous asses. The readers of the Moscow and Petersburg magazines that he wrote for seemed to like it, too, judging by the volume of such stories they published. A perfect example of this type of story is “At a Country House.” Like “The First-Class Passenger,” it was written in 1886, his most prolific year (for short stories, anyway), and yet despite the incredible volume of work he produced (while working as a doctor!), some of the stories are among his very best: “Agafya,” “Dreams,” and “The Privy Councillor” among them.
A Chekhov Circus 