A despondent young man without connections is trapped at a menial job running a small, remote train station. On New Year's Eve he shares a bottle of champagne with his wife, and when he drops it, she warns him that he has suffered an omen of ill-luck. HarperCollins brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the...

Ryabovitch is the picture of self-consciousness, clearly aware of his own awkward bearing, small stature, and unusual looks. While attending a glamorous party hosted by Lieutenant General von Rabbek, Ryabovitch avoids the other guests by wandering into a darkened room where he suddenly finds himself in the embrace of a woman who favours him with a passionate kiss. However, once the woman realizes that Ryabovitch is not the man she had been waiting...

It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by someone or other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's...

Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop looking about for some one. Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka with a smile.

Honored Sir, Father and Benefactor, a petty clerk called Nevyrazimov sitting in his office on the Easter Eve in the company of a cockroach scurrying the table, muses upon what he might do to make it in the world.

Between five and six in the evening. A fairly well-known man of learning is sitting in his study nervously biting his nails. 'It's positively revolting,' he says, continually looking at his watch. 'It shows the utmost disrespect for another man's time and work. In England such a person would not earn a farthing, he would die of hunger. You wait a minute, when you do come . . . .'

Obviously he was born a mouse catcher, a worthy son of his bloodthirsty ancestors. Fate had destined him to be the terror of cellars, store-rooms and cornbins, and had it not been for education . . .

Olga Ivanovna Dymova enjoys the company of extraordinary people, all painters, writers and musicians, who look to her bright and original. All members of the small artistic circle which she is a hostess of, they all tell her she herself is a promising artist and pianist, the reputation she tries to uphold by practicing regularly and producing countless and, apparently, not very original 'etudes'.

Varka, a 13-year-old babysitter, sits all night long by the cradle trying desperately not to fall asleep for she knows she'd be severely beaten by her masters for that. Once she nods off, and gets it in the neck. The sleepless night by a screaming baby draws on and on, as the girl, eyes half-open, recalls horrors of her past: father dying of hernia, mother begging for food by the road... Another sleepless night behind, there comes the day full of...

Volodya Korolyov, a second-form gymnasium student, arrives home for Christmas holidays, causing uproar and joy in the house. He is accompanied by his school friend Chechevitsyn. Very soon Volodya's sisters Katya, Sonya and Masha start to notice peculiarities in the boys' behavior. Both are absent-minded, look mysterious, rarely answer questions properly and if speak at all, then with enigmatic one-liners, like 'In California they drink gin instead...