Chekhov's stories operate on a simple principle: in the space between what people say and what they mean, life happens. This collection gathers seven of his most quietly devastating tales, including the masterpiece 'The Bishop,' in which a weary prelate conducting Palm Sunday services suddenly sees his mother's face in the crowd and is undone by a grief he has spent years suppressing. Here is a man of God who cannot pray, a man of status who cannot escape loneliness, a man who has sacrificed everything for his position only to discover the position has taken everything. Around him, Chekhov orchestrates smaller tragedies: a letter that arrives too late, a nightmare that won't release its hold, a murder that exposes the stupidity of violence. The steppe stretches on, indifferent. Nothing explodes. Everything resonates. These are stories about the moments we pretend aren't happening, the words we don't say, the lives we're too tired to examine. Chekhov wrote that a story should leave the reader uncertain whether what they've read is excellent or merely ordinary. This collection makes that uncertainty impossible.
