profitless, is often found in the work of Tchekoff. His story
"The Kiss" is but a variation of this theme,--the absurdity of life.
Lieutenant Riabovich, under the influence of a chance kiss, a kiss
that was not meant for him, dreams of love for an entire summer; he
waits impatiently for the return of the pretty stranger; but alas,
his lovely dream cannot be realized, for the simple and cruel reason
that no one is waiting for _him_, no one is interested in him. One
day, on the banks of a stream, the young officer gives himself up to
his reflections:

"The water flows off; one knows not where nor why; it flowed in
exactly the same way last May; from the stream it flows into the
river, and then into the sea; then it evaporates, turns into rain,
and perhaps the very same water again flows by before my eyes.... To
what good? Why?" And all life appears to Riabovich an absurd
mystification and seems thoroughly senseless.

The hero of "The Bet" absolutely scorns humanity, with its petty and
its great deeds, its little and its great ideas, because he feels
that after all everything must disappear, be annihilated, and the
earth itself will turn into a mass of ice.

* * * * *

Tchekoff has given us innumerable rough sketches typical of people
belonging to the most diverse social classes. He seems to take his
readers by the hand and to lead them wherever he can show them
characteristic scenes of modern Russian society,--be it in the
country, in the factory, in princely dwellings, at the post-office,
or on the highway. He barely takes the time absolutely necessary to
depict in a few, appropriate words a state of mind or the secret of
a gesture. One would say that he hastens to express the totality of
life with the variety of his detached manifestations of it. That is
why his stories are short; often mere allusions stand in place of
actual development. And whatever domains or corners of Russian life
the reader, under the guiding hand of this perspicacious cicerone,
may visit, he will almost always go away with one predominating
impression: the lamentable isolation of Russia.

"The Windswept Grain" shows the reader a religious establishment,
where a young Jew, recently converted, has taken refuge. Here is a
young man, very impressionable and eager to learn, who has fled from
his home and his family, whose prejudices offended him. His family
tries every means to bring him back and to punish his apos