CHEKHOV TEXTS ON THIS SITE

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1. A TRIVIAL INCIDENT (Пустой случай) (1886) The narrator recounts how he and his companion, a Prince, had been prevented from hunting in the forest of Madame Kandurin, with whom the prince had formerly been connected. The two go to the lady’s mansion, where the narrator realises the extent of the prince’s sad situation and how close he had previously been to an entirely different fate. (4,000 words)
2. ON THE ROAD (На пути) (1887) We follow the unfolding of the intense (…)

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1. OYSTERS (Устрицы) (1884) An eight-year-old boy accompanying his unemployed father who has decided to go out to beg for alms notices the strange word “OYSTERS” on a sign inside a restaurant. The story continues in ever-starker tones as the little fellow progressively discovers the meaning of the word and the thing itself. (1,500 words)
2. AN ACTOR’S END (Актерская гибель) (1886) The actor Shtchiptsov feels something snap in his chest and totters off to his hotel room (…)

Anton Chekhov wrote 522 short stories – and many other texts – during his all-too-short career. Although in the main they tend to centre on the dissatisfactions and less-than-joyous aspects of the lives of people from all walks of life, many of them do have a certain whimsical character bordering on the comical, particularly when dealing with servants and country folk somewhat susceptible to the demon drink.
This tale, consisting of the notes of a high-minded and very irascible professor (…)

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1. OLD AGE (Старость) (1885) The architect Uzelkov returns on mission to the town that he had left twenty years before after his divorce there, and is invited to dinner by the wily lawyer who had handled his divorce and who reveals to him during the dinner what really went on with his former wife in those far-off days. (2,200 words)
2. ART (Художество) (1886) Seryozhka has a great talent for creating magnificent holy icons out of snow and ice on the frozen river for the (…)

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1. THE HUNTSMAN (Егерь) (1885) Yegor is hunting with his dog when he hears his name called by Pelagea, the young woman he had married twelve years previously and who is still hopelessly in love with him. (1,700 words)
2. SORROW (Горе) (1885) The introverted monologue of a peasant who is almost lost in a violent snow-storm driving his critically-ailing wife to the hospital, as he reviews his life and marriage. (2,200 words)
3. LADIES (Дамы) (1886) The Director of (…)

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1. A DEAD BODY (Мертвое тело) (1885) A corpse wrapped in linen is lying under a tree in the middle of a misty August night, dutifully watched over by two peasants who are keeping a fire alive. They listen to the sounds of the forest and talk to fight off their feelings of eeriness when a pilgrim comes along attracted by the fire, who is afraid to continue on his way alone after seeing the corpse. (1,900 words)
2. THE REQUIEM (Панихида) (1886) Andrey Andryitch is in (…)

Podgorin, a thirty-year-old lawyer, receives a mail from Tatyana and Varya, two young women of his age with whom he’d been very close ten years previously, asking him to come for a visit to Tatyana’s family home where she lives with husband and two young children and her young sister Nadezhda. He feels obliged to go, knowing that the husband is a wastrel and a profligate and that they probably have financial problems. Which turns out to be very much the case, as they are bankrupt, the estate (…)

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1. CHORISTERS (Певчие) (1884) The sacristan of a village church has been intensely rehearsing a complex choral with the school’s choir in preparation for the forthcoming visit of a Petersburg dignitary, in spite of the vocal inadequacies of the singers and the hostility of the church deacon. But when the big day arrives, there is a crisis that reconciles the two churchmen. (1,900 words)
2. THE MARSHAL’S WIDOW (У предводительши) (1885) Every year on the estate of Madame (…)

A moral fable with a sharp edge to it recounting the fate of Maria Spalanzo, who had the misfortune to cross the path of a monk in Barcelona in bygone days looking particularly lovely in the evening moonlight and thereby arousing the deadly wrath of the fanatically misogynous priest and the fatal accusation of witchcraft.
A forceful denunciation of the crimes committed during the Spanish Inquisition, written by the 21-year-old Chekhov in an exceptionally severe, anti-clerical and even (…)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. A LIVING CALENDAR (Живая хронология) (1885) An elderly official is discussing with a friend about how things used to be more lively in their town, citing memorable occasions from the past. He needs reminders from his wife as to exactly when each of these four events had taken place, and every time the wife reminds him that the event took place during the visit of a friend less than a year before the birth of one of their four children. (950 words)
2. IN THE DARK (В (…)