The six stories in this collection were written between 1891 and 1895, when Chekhov was at the zenith of his powers as a short-story writer. Chekhov once said that a writer should not provide solutions but describe a situation so truthfully that the reader can no longer evade it. In these stories he deals with a variety of themes -- religious fanaticism and sectarianism, meglomania, scientific controversies of the time -- as well as provincial life in all its tedium and philistinism. And through his expressive portraits of men and women afflicted with inertia, selfishness and spiritual emptiness, he illuminates the social and philosophical questions of his day. Despite the current of pessimism, Chekhov never abandons his belief in the capacity for human progress through education and knowledge.