A Chekhov Circus

A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov

Tag: Travelers

  • No. 6 – Easter Eve

    Chekhov is generally considered to be an atheist, but his letters are studded with religious references, especially around Easter, the most profound Christian holiday and an especially important one in Russia. “Christ is risen!” he exclaimed in letters each spring, year after year. This may be not much different than a non-observant modern American typing…

  • No. 10 – The Schoolmistress

    This is a beautiful, concise tale of a lonely and loveless woman, a teacher in a rural school. Her work is largely unappreciated, if not completely ignored, by the local government and population. On a regular basis she must travel to town to collect her pay, and on one of these trips she meets a…

  • No. 50 – On Official Duty

    Chekhov wrote quite a few stories set in waystations of one sort or another – mean little inns, railway stations, etc. – where folk of different classes and backgrounds are forced to cohabit with one another, if only for a night or two. “On the Road,” “The Post,” “Easter Eve,” “The Witch”…. really it’s a…

  • No. 155 – The Steppe

    A boy travels from his home on the steppe to a new city, accompanied by a variety of fellow travelers.

  • No. 132 – The First-Class Passenger

    Chatting up a stranger on a train, an engineer laments the fact that for all his accomplishments, he is not as well known as actors, writers and the like.

  • No. 25 – The Lady with the Dog

    Here it is, Chekhov’s best-known story. If you, an American reader, have ever read any selection of Chekhov tales, this one was almost certainly included in your volume. I, too, had read “The Lady With the Dog” (probably more than once) and my hazy, warm memories of it were the main reason that I thought…

  • No. 26 – Champagne

    This is (for Chekhov) an unusual, foxy little story narrated by a bad man. The narrator works at a godforsaken railway station, where “for fifteen miles around there was not one human habitation, not one woman, not one decent tavern.” The station constitutes a tiny world unto itself: “My wife and I; a deaf and…

  • No. 28 – The Student

    This is a lovely, unironic portrait of religious belief. A clerical student, walking home through the woods, comes upon a mother and daughter having dinner. As he warms himself at their fire, he is reminded of the way the apostle Peter similarly warmed himself on the evening of the last supper.  The student recalls the…

  • No. 29 – Ariadne

    This is a brilliant story about a romantic, shallow young man, Shamohin, who is lovesick for his beautiful neighbor, the cold and manipulative (and equally shallow) Ariadne. Shamohin trails pathetically after Ariadne and her lover to Italy, and even lends them money that neither he nor his father can afford to give away. Having longed…

  • No. 35 – The Cossack

    Driving home from Easter services with his wife, a young farmer chances upon a man in a field–a Cossack–who has fallen ill. The farmer’s minor attempt to help the man is blocked by his wife, and they return home, leaving the Cossack alone in the field. This small failure of charity is an omen of…