Five Great Short Stories

ANTON PAVLOVICH CHEKHOV (1860-1904): Russian physician and preeminent author of short stories and plays. The present volume contains five of his most highly regarded stories, set in a variety of Tsarist Russian milieux and representative of the basic themes of his oeuvre: the sociological and psychological obstacles in the way of human affection and satisfactory development of the personality.

Table of Contents

Title Page
DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS
Copyright Page
The Black Monk

CHAPTER I - Nerves
CHAPTER II - A Pale Face!
CHAPTER III - She Loves
CHAPTER IV - Tears of Tania
CHAPTER V - Red Spots
CHAPTER VI - The Black Guest
CHAPTER VII - Don’t Be Afraid!
CHAPTER VIII - Torture
CHAPTER IX - Blood of Kovrin

The House with the Mezzanine

(A Painter’s Story)
II
III
IV

The Peasants

CHAPTER I - Blows
CHAPTER II - Marya
CHAPTER III - Songs
CHAPTER IV - Dreams!
CHAPTER V - Fire!
CHAPTER VI - The Hut
CHAPTER VII - Who Else?
CHAPTER VIII - Died
CHAPTER IX - Give Alms!

Gooseberries
The Lady with the Toy Dog

II
III
IV

DOVER THRIFT EDITIONS

EDITOR: STANLEY APPELBAUM

This Dover edition, first published in 1990, is an unabridged republication of five stories. “The Black Monk” and “The Peasants” are reprinted from The Works of Anton Chekhov: One Volume Edition, Black’s Readers Service Company, N.Y., n.d. (ca. 1929; translators not credited). “The House with the Mezzanine,” “Gooseberries” and “The Lady with the Toy Dog” are reprinted from My Life and Other Stories, C. W. Daniel, Ltd., London, 1920 (translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Gilbert Cannan). A number of typographical errors have been corrected tacitly. Footnotes glossing Russian terms remaining in the translated texts have been prepared specially for this Dover edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904.
[Short stories. English. Selections]
Five great short stories / Anton Chekhov.
p. cm.—(Dover thrift editions)
Translated from the Russian.

Contents: The black monk—The house with the mezzanine—The peasants—Gooseberries—The lady with the toy dog.

9780486153537

1. Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860-1904—Translations, English. I. Title. II. Series.

PG3456.A13 1990

891.73’3—dc20

90-3580

CIP

Manufactured in the United States by Courier Corporation
26463714
www.doverpublications.com

The Black Monk

CHAPTER I

Nerves

ANDREY VASIL’ICH KOVRIN, Master of Arts, was overworked and nervous. He was not being treated, but one day while sitting with a doctor at wine he happened casually to speak about his health. The physician advised him to pass the spring and summer in the country. Opportunely he received then a long letter from Tania Pesotski, inviting him to visit Borisovka. He decided that he really required a change.

It was April. He went to his family estate of Kovrinka for three weeks; then, the roads being clear, he started on wheels to see his former guardian and tutor, Pesotski, the great horticulturist. From Kovrinka to Borisovka, where the Pesotskis lived, it was only seventy versts,1 and it was a pleasure to take the drive.

Egor Semenych Pesotski’s house was huge, with columns and lions, but the plaster was cracking. The old park, severe and gloomy, laid out in the English style, extended for nearly a verst from the house to the river, and finished in abruptly precipitous clayey banks, on which there grew old pines with bare roots that looked like shaggy paws; down below the water glittered unsociably, and snipe flitted along its surface with plaintive cries. When there you always had the feeling that you must sit down and write a ballad.