Translated by Constance Garnett “HERE goes, I’ve done with drinking! Nothing… n-o-thing shall tempt me to it. It’s time to take myself in hand; I must buck up and work… You’re glad to get your salary, so you must do your work honestly, heartily, conscientiously, regardless of sleep and comfort. Chuck taking it easy. You’ve […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I THE village of Ukleevo lay in a ravine so that only the belfry and the chimneys of the printed cottons factories could be seen from the high road and the railway-station. When visitors asked what village this was, they were told: “That’s the village where the deacon ate all the […]

Translated by Constance Garnett AT the furthest end of the village of Mironositskoe some belated sportsmen lodged for the night in the elder Prokofy’s barn. There were two of them, the veterinary surgeon Ivan Ivanovitch and the schoolmaster Burkin. Ivan Ivanovitch had a rather strange double-barrelled surname — Tchimsha-Himalaisky — which did not suit him […]

Translated by Constance Garnett VANKA ZHUKOV, a boy of nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to Alyahin the shoemaker, was sitting up on Christmas Eve. Waiting till his master and mistress and their workmen had gone to the midnight service, he took out of his master’s cupboard a bottle of ink and a […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I It was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a lady with a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been a fortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun to take an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney’s pavilion, […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I THERE was the thud of horses’ hoofs on the wooden floor; they brought out of the stable the black horse, Count Nulin ; then the white, Giant; then his sister Maika. They were all magnificent, expensive horses. Old Shelestov saddled Giant and said, addressing his daughter Masha: “Well, Marie Godefroi […]

Translated by Constance Garnett AT lunch next day there were very nice pies, crayfish, and mutton cutlets; and while we were eating, Nikanor, the cook, came up to ask what the visitors would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a puffy face and little eyes; he was close-shaven, and it […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I AFTER the wedding they had not even light refreshments; the happy pair simply drank a glass of champagne, changed into their travelling things, and drove to the station. Instead of a gay wedding ball and supper, instead of music and dancing, they went on a journey to pray at a […]

Translated by Constance Garnett THE whole sky had been overcast with rain-clouds from early morning; it was a still day, not hot, but heavy, as it is in grey dull weather when the clouds have been hanging over the country for a long while, when one expects rain and it does not come. Ivan Ivanovitch, […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I IT was getting dark; it would soon be night. Gusev, a discharged soldier, sat up in his hammock and said in an undertone: “I say, Pavel Ivanitch. A soldier at Sutchan told me: while they were sailing a big fish came into collision with their ship and stove a hole […]

Translated by Constance Garnett A SULTRY, stifling midday. Not a cloudlet in the sky…. The sun-baked grass had a disconsolate, hopeless look: even if there were rain it could never be green again…. The forest stood silent, motionless, as though it were looking at something with its tree-tops or expecting something. At the edge of […]

Translated by Constance Garnett AT eight o’clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N—- Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the village of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the general commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupied around the […]

Translated by Constance Garnett I ALL Olga Ivanovna’s friends and acquaintances were at her wedding. “Look at him; isn’t it true that there is something in him?” she said to her friends, with a nod towards her husband, as though she wanted to explain why she was marrying a simple, very ordinary, and in no […]