The Story of a Nobody

I admire Chekov for his humanity...he lived to share his talents with others. In this story, though he is an educated man, the main character becomes the servant of a man of the upper class in St Petersburg whose father is his political enemy. Because he speaks French, he is privy to what goes on between his master, Orlov, and the woman who is his mistress. He writes of Orlov's shameful treatment of her "Cold, crude jokes, braying laughter...does all this not seem like a desire at any cost to bend women so low towards the dirt that they and your attitude to them are on the same level?..."

This 19th century novella, like most Russian literature of that period, has its pros and cons. Sometimes interesting, often ambiguous and sometimes overly brooding. In the end a decent but hardly outstanding read.