Max Bollinger
21) Zinotchka
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The party of sportsmen spent the night in a peasant's hut on some newly mown hay. The moon peeped in at the window; from the street came the mournful wheezing of a concertina; from the hay came a sickly sweet, faintly troubling scent. The sportsmen talked about dogs, about women, about first love, and about snipe.
22) Misery
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The cabman Iona's son recently died. He desperately and unsuccessfully tries to have a talk with the people he meets and tell them of how shattered he is. He ends up talking to his horse.
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A journey into the depth of Russian countryside where intimate connection with nature comes as a natural way of life. Meet Kassyan, who can communicate directly with birds and other forest creatures. Discover mysterious sweet-voiced oracle bird, The Gamayune living among trees with leaves that fall not, neither in autumn nor in winter, and apples grow of gold, on silver branches, and every man lives in uprightness and content.
24) The Fish
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On a hot summer day two carpenters, Gerasim and Lyubim, sit in a pond, floundering about in the water under a willow tree, beside the unfinished bathing shed they were supposed to be working on. Blue from cold and wrangling, they struggle to drag a large eelpout by the gills, from under the root.
25) The Helpmate
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It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by someone or other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's...
26) An Inadvertence
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Strizhin, who normally leads a sober and regular life, comes home from a christening party where he had permitted himself to drink four glasses of vodka and a glass of wine, the taste of which suggested something midway between vinegar and castor oil. And of course spirituous liquors being like sea-water and glory: the more you imbibe of them the greater your thirst, Strizhin felt an overwhelming craving for another drink. He accidentally downed a...
27) Polinka
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Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop looking about for some one. Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka with a smile.
28) In An Hotel
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Madame Nashatyrin is fed up with violent behaviour and foul language emanating from abusive male guest next door. She has two grown up daughters and is concerned about their well being when complaining to the hotel-keeper. 'Either give me other apartments, or I shall leave your confounded hotel altogether! It's a sink of iniquity! Why don't you get rid of the scoundrel?' But as soon as the marital status of the scoundrel revealed she meditates and...
29) A Malefactor
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A local investigating magistrate unsuccessfully tries to explain that it is wrong to take nuts off the railroad track to a peasant, Grigoryev, who simply cannot see why he's to be deprived of his right to use an iron nut as a weight for his fishing line.
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A collection of short stories from one of the most famous writers of very long novels Leo Tolstoy, including: Ilyas, Little Girls Wiser Than Men, The Coffee-House of Surat. 'For man to be able to live he must either not see the infinite, or have such an explanation of the meaning of life as will connect the finite with the infinite.'
31) Ladies
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The importance of women and their influence can never be underestimated. This story vividly shows how in 19th century Russia women pull strings behind scenes to influence even the most principled and seemingly unbreakable of decision makers. And only Chekhov knows how to express such delicate matters in the most enjoyable and humorous way.
32) Talent
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Yegor could not imagine his future works but he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would look after him.
33) Boots
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A piano tuner called Murkin, a close-shaven man with a yellow face, with a nose stained with snuff, and cotton-wool in his ears, came out of his hotel-room into the passage. And looking at his frightened face one might have supposed that the ceiling had fallen in on him or that he had just seen a ghost in his room. 'Upon my word, Semyon!' he cried, seeing the attendant running towards him. 'What is the meaning of it? I am a rheumatic, delicate man...
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Natalya just returned from Yalta, Crimea and is telling her husband over dinner of all the charms of the Crimea. Her husband, delighted, gazed tenderly at her enthusiastic face, listened, and from time to time put in a question. Natalya's never-ceasing babble gets her into serious trouble however. She is eager to expose her friend Yulia of some indiscretion with a local guide and this leads to revelations of Natalya's own 'gay' times with one of...
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A collection of Short Stories by Anton Chekhov featuring A Tragic Actor, In A Strange Land, Oh The Public, The Looking Glass, Her Husband and Overdoing It. These stories are small masterpieces. The scene is set quickly and within a few sentences the story line is underway. But all seem to contain an element of the unexpected.
36) The Chorus Girl
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One day when she was younger and better-looking, and when her voice was stronger, Nikolay Petrovitch Kolpakov, her adorer, was sitting in the outer room in her summer villa. It was intolerably hot and stifling. Kolpakov, who had just dined and drunk a whole bottle of inferior port, felt ill-humoured and out of sorts. Both were bored and waiting for the heat of the day to be over in order to go for a walk.
37) Gooseberry
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Nikolai Ivanich has never reconciled himself to life in the city and makes plans to acquire enough money to buy a small estate where he can grow gooseberries, a symbol in his mind of happy life in the countryside. He saves every penny and spends his days dreaming of the future estate: where the main building will be located, ducks swimming in a pond, and where the gooseberry bushes will be planted. His brother sees it as an escape from reality and...
38) Ivan Matveyitch
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Between five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of learning is sitting in his study nervously biting his nails. 'It's positively revolting,' he says, continually looking at his watch. 'It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . .'
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A native Frenchman no longer tutors the wealthy landlord's children as they've grown up and left the house. The Frenchman is now paid simply to be around, to be properly dressed, to smell of scent, and to listen to Kamyshev's babble, to eat and drink and sleep. It may sound like a dream job but there's always a catch.
40) The Huntsman
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Yegor the huntsman, walking down a country road accidentally meets his estranged wife Pelageya whom he's been married for twelve years but visited just several times, and even then, drunk and violent. She weeps and, fawning before him, implores him to visit her more often. He tries to explain why he, the best sportsman around, 'a pampered man', enjoying good tea and 'refined conversation', could not bear to live in a village.