GriefrnAgafyarnMisfortunernA Boring Story (From an Old Man's Notebook)rnThe GrasshopperrnWard No. 6rnAriadnernThe House with an AtticrnIonychrnThe DarlingrnThe Lady with the LapdogrnrnAnton Pavlovich Chekhov may be likened to his contemporaries, the "pointilliste" painters. Piece by piece, episode by episode, character by character, he constructs in prose a survey of the human condition. As David Magarshack writes in his introduction, on reading these stories 'one gets the impression of holding life itself, like a fluttering bird, in one's cupped hands'