The Black Monk, and Other Stories

The preface to The Black Monk and Other Stories says the writer of the stories and sketches here translated is hardly known in this country and little better known on the western continent of Europe, yet has during the last fifteen years been regarded as the most talented of the younger generation of Russian writers. The preface also says the stories lack the striking incidents and lurid colouring of the younger writer's.

One scene has a man embrace Kovrin and kiss him on the cheek, and go round the whole garden showing his former ward the orangery, the hothouses, the sheds, and two beehives. A speaker looks back to when you were little children, calls himself a wicked, dissolute man, and says he used to come back late from the club, drunk and irritated, and begin to abuse your poor mother about the household expenses. A scene with the postmaster has him ask Andréi Yéfimitch what money he has, and Andréi Yéfimitch counts his money and says eighty-six roubles.