Forty Stories

First Vintage Classics Edition, March 1991

Copyright © 1963 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published under the title The Image of Chekhov in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1963.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, 1860–1904.

[Short stories. English. Selections]

Forty stories / by Anton Chekhov; translated and with an

introduction by Robert Payne.—1st Vintage classics ed.

p. cm.—(Vintage classics)

Originally published: The image of Chekhov, New York:

Knopf, 1963.

eISBN: 978-0-307-77853-6

1. Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich. 1860–1904—

Translations, English.

1. Payne, Robert, 1911–  . II. Title. III. Series.

PG3456.A13P39   1991

891.73’3—dc20      90-50473

v3.1

FOR

Patricia

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction by Robert Payne

Translator’s Note

1880      The Little Apples

1881      St. Peter’s Day

1882      Green Scythe

1883      Joy

The Ninny

The Highest Heights

Death of a Government Clerk

At the Post Office

1884      Surgery

In the Cemetery

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way

1885      A Report

The Threat

The Huntsman

The Malefactor

A Dead Body

Sergeant Prishibeyev

1886      A Blunder

Heartache

Anyuta

The Proposal

Vanka

Who Is to Blame?

1887      Typhus

1888      Sleepyhead

1889      The Princess

1890      Gusev