The schoolmistress, and other stories

My God! how interesting, how fascinating men were! Nadya recalled the fine expression, ingratiating, guilty, and soft, which came into the officer’s face when one argued about m...

“His wife, his daughter.... What of prison and what of sorrow!--anyway, he did see his wife and his daughter.... You say, want nothing. But ‘nothing’ is bad! His wife lived with...

Getting into the sledge, the old man spends a long time crossing himself in the direction in which the monastery walls make a patch of darkness in the fog. Yasha sits beside him...

I walked along a narrow path at the very edge of a railway embankment. The moonlight glided over the lines which were already covered with dew. Great shadows from the clouds kep...

“What rascals they all are!” says the officer jocosely. “They are simply doing their best to run up against you or fall under the horse’s feet. They must be doing it on purpose.”

“As far as I am concerned, gentlemen, I am always delighted to meet with these verdicts of not guilty. I am not afraid for morality and justice when they say ‘Not guilty,’ but o...

Andrey Andreyitch walked with dignity from the altar, and with a solemn, requiem-like expression on his red face took his stand in the middle of the church. The verger Matvey se...

“You here! I tell you it’s really impossible to go anywhere with Yegor! What a fellow he is! I don’t understand him! He has got up a scene! Do you hear? Yegor!” he shouted at th...

“‘Administration,’” the constable repeated aloud. “He has been calling me that for a long while, for the last six years. ‘Hullo, Administration!’ But I don’t mind; let him, God...

“We know how to eat and drink, but we don’t remember our work. Yesterday we could do nothing all day but eat and drink, and I’ll be bound we forgot to put down what we spent. Wh...

“Your wife does not learn her part, you are right there,” the manager was saying. “She doesn’t know her line.... Every man has his own line,... but she doesn’t know hers....”

There was a warmth inside him from the vodka. He looked with softened feelings at his friends, admired them and envied them. In these strong, healthy, cheerful people how wonder...

In the night, towards morning, it all subsided. When they got up and looked out of window, the bare willows with their weakly drooping branches were standing perfectly motionles...

THE SCHOOLMISTRESS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN MISERY CHAMPAGNE AFTER THE THEATRE A LADY’S STORY IN EXILE THE CATTLE-DEALERS SORROW ON OFFICIAL DUTY THE FIRST-CLASS PASSENGER A TRAGIC A...

It was that butterfly’s beauty so in keeping with waltzing, darting about the garden, laughter and gaiety, and incongruous with serious thought, grief, and repose; and it seemed...