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No. 36 – In Exile
This is a perfectly horrible, extremely well-wrought story. A young Tatar has been banished to the steppe. There he meets old Semyon, who has been eking out a living in exile for years, and whose philosophy of life is that it is better to be miserable, because you’ll get used to it. If you grow…
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No. 84 – After the Theater
A flighty teenager daydreams about life and religion.
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No. 130 – Small Fry
A resentful clerk dreams of avenging himself on his superiors, but he can only take out his frustrations on a cockroach.
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No. 107 – A Tragic Actor
A father is distraught when his daughter runs off with an actor.
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No. 178 – The Bet
A lawyer bets he can live in solitary confinement for 15 years.
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No. 188 – The Shoemaker and the Devil
A shoemaker agrees to sell his soul to the devil.
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No. 113 – A Nervous Breakdown
A naive law student has a nervous breakdown after a dispiriting bar crawl through Moscow’s red light district.
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No. 176 – Panic Fears
An unnamed narrator relates three separate, unrelated moments of deep unease.
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No. 164 – The Beauties
An unnamed narrator recalls two strikingly beautiful women.
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No. 152 – The Cattle Dealers
This is a long story, practically a novella, that is more reportage than fiction. Written in the present tense like a news article, the story concerns the transport of a herd of cattle via rail. The story details the various difficulties of transporting and selling cattle, and in particular the challenges involved in cajoling (and…
A Chekhov Circus
A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov
A Chekhov Circus 