In 1894 Chekhov Tolstoy at his estate Yasnaya Polyana, and they seem to have been good friends despite their different views (Tolstoy was of course a peasant-adorer, trying hard to become one himself).
These were years that Chekhov wrote many excellent stories; in 1895 he also published one of his most original plays, The Seagull. The premiere in 1896 was, however, a disaster - it had to wait until 1998 when Stanislavski performed it successfully with his innovative Moscow Art Theatre.
Here are the stories from 1892, 1893, 1894 and 1895 (I have only left out a few sketches of which I could find no translation). I have provided links to the translations by Constance Garnett at Gutenberg.
“My Wife [The Wife]” [1892]
Pavel is married to the much younger Natalia. Since two years, they live together-apart, the wife on the ground floor and Pavel on the first floor of the house. There is almost no communication between them, she hates him, he is indifferent to her. Then in the year 1892 there is terrible famine and the peasants are dying, also in the nearby village. Natalia organizes and coordinates the help from local landowners, but to her despair, Pavel also sticks his nose in it. She does it from conviction, he from duty. Everybody flees his pompousness. Finally, he returns to his wife and puts his fortune at her disposal to use for her charities. He will soon be ruined but feels at peace.
Gutenberg
“The Grasshopper [The Butterfly] [The Fidget]” [1892]
Ossip Dymov, a young hardworking medical doctor has married Olga, a gay and artistic woman. While he is occupied with his profession, she parties with artists and also makes a trip with a group of friends. She even has an adulterous affair with Ryabovsky, a bohemian-type landscape painter. But when her husband tries to save a patient from diphtheria and himself is infected and dies, she finally realizes that her quiet and hard-working husband was the person with much higher qualities than her artist friends. But now it is too late...
Gutenberg
“After the Theater” [1892]
The idealistic reveries of a 16-year old girl, who has just seen a romantic piece in the theater.
Gutenberg
“In Exile” [1892]
One of the few stories based on experiences during Chekhov's 1890 journey through Siberia to Sakhalin. Old Semyon and a young Tartar are working with other exiles as ferrymen at a river crossing. Semyon urges the Tartar to accept his fate. It is no use fighting. He gives the example of Vasily Sergeyitch, a wealthy aristocrat also sent into exile, whose daughter is afflicted with consumption. The father keeps looking for new doctors, often using the ferry crossing when he sets out on his searches, but Old Semyon mocks him, preaching the doctrine of accepting one's fate and doing nothing. This is the attitude Chekhov subtly criticizes: not only is the resignation of Semyon egoistic (he has no empathy for the struggle of others), on top of that he suffers from the common Russian ailment, fatalism - which "justifies" being stone drunk every day because it is no use doing anything.
Gutenberg
“Neighbors [1892]
About the problem of inter-human communication. Ivashin's sister Zina has left home to live as common-in-law wife with their neighbor, Vlassitch. A marriage is impossible as Vlassitch wife refuses to grant a separation. After hesitating for a whole month, Ivashin finally visits Vlassitch to clarify the situation. He does not understand what his sister sees in this man. But the visit is unsuccessful: Zina asserts herself and refuses to return home (causing her mother pain), Vlassitch appears to have mortgaged everything to buy off his wife without making any progress, and Ivashin returns home feeling depressed and empty. How will these people be able to find happiness?
Gutenberg
“Ward No. 6” [1892]
The director of a decrepit insane asylum (Ward No. 6) in a provincial town ends up committed to his own ward in a story criticizing repressive society. Doctor Ragin is a solitary man, who has neither pride nor pleasure in his profession. When he was young, he tried to take his duties in the hospital seriously (although he has always felt superior towards the country bumpkins around him), but gradually he has lost all interest and leaves most of the work to his assistant Sergey. The hospital is dirty but Ragin looks away and prefers to spend his time reading. He fails to empathize with the sick and believes that there is no point in trying to cure patients or alleviate suffering. "Dying is the normal end of us all." Then Ragin becomes fascinated by one of the five patients in the ward, Gromov, who is a well-educated man, but also a paranoid. Ragin daily spends hours debating with Gromov. Ragin's outrageous behavior finally leads to his dismissal, and incarceration as a lunatic himself. Happily for him, he soon has a stroke and dies.
Gutenberg
“Terror [Fear]” [1892]
Dimitry Silin seems to have everything needed for a happy life: Marya, a wife he loves, children, a well-run farm, and a friend who often visits him. That friend is the narrator, and he feels ill at ease as he is in love with Marya. One day, Silin tells him that his marriage is not really a happy one, he loves his wife, but she doesn't love him. That very evening the narrator happens to be alone with Marya and he confesses to her that he makes such frequent visits because he loves her, although she is the wife of his best friend. He spends the night with her in his room. In the morning, as Marya is leaving his room, Silin appears to say goodbye to his friend before going to his fields. Has he understood what happened? The shameful narrator leaves immediately and never again visits Silin and his wife.
Gutenberg
"The two Volodyas" [1893]
Twenty-four hours from the life of Sofya Lyovna. Just a few months ago, she has married Colonel Vladimir Nikititch (named Big Volodya) who is 30 years older - it was a marriage for money. In reality, she is in love with her youth friend Vladimir Mihalovitch (named Little Volodya), a military doctor in the regiment of her husband. Little Volodya plays constantly around with married women, but has never shown any romantic interest in Sofia. Sofia tries to persuade herself that she has done the right thing by marrying Big Volodya, and that she is happy. Driving home through the night with both Volodyas after a dinner with lots of alcohol, she stops at a convent to meet her friend Olga who has retreated there recently. Olga's seemingly fulfilling life in the religious order makes Sofya feel all the stronger that her own life is a mess. The next day Sofya becomes the mistress of Little Volodya, but a month afterwards, he already drops her. She realizes that she has a boring and vapid life before her.
Gutenberg
“An Anonymous Story” [1893]
One of the five novellas Chekhov wrote, a mix of bits and pieces of Russian literary themes. The narrator ("Stefan") seems to be a political activist or spy (reminding us of Dostoevsky's Demons), and therefore remains anonymous - he gets the job of footman in the house of Orlov, a young Petersburg playboy, whose father is an important political figure. But this is not at all a political story: it is a love story (in the style of Turgenev, with Orlov as the typical "superfluous man"). The narrator observes how Orlov charms a beautiful young married woman, Zinaida, who leaves her husband, and moves in with Orlov. But the playboy soon grows tired of her, even moving in with friends in order to escape her presence, although Zinaida continues to love him passionately. As it happens, the narrator in his turn has fallen one-sidedly in love with her, and finally manages to persuade her to flee with him to Venice, and afterwards Florence and Nice. But when he tells her about his love, Zinaida is disappointed in him for she believed he was helping her purely out of altruism. In the meantime, Zinaida discovers that she is pregnant (from Orlov) and the narrator has an attack of "pleurisy" (in reality tuberculosis, but just like Chekhov he does not admit this). When Zinaida dies in childbirth (with the help of some poison), the narrator decides to bring up the child which has been delivered safely. He returns to Russia to do so, but after two years his tuberculosis becomes worse, so he resolves his conflict with Orlov and takes measures for the care of Zinaide's child after his death. A strange story that does not entirely convince.
Gutenberg
“The Black Monk” [1894]
Kovrin, a brilliant scholar, is overworked and decides to take a holiday at the horticulture center run by his childhood friend Tanya and her father. Kovrin enjoys helping with work in the garden. But then he starts seeing the phantom of a black monk, a hallucination which strangely enough seems to give him new strength. In other words, Kovrin may be decidedly schizophrenic. As summer goes by, Kovrin keeps having the same hallucinations. But he has fallen in love with Tanya, marries her, and moves back to the city with her. His hallucinations now become so overwhelmingly frequent that he seeks a cure. The medical treatment helps him get rid of the "black monk," but also saps his energy and creativity. The marriage goes bad, both partners have started hating the other, and Tanya returns to her father's estate. Kovrin is offered the position of professor, but he has physically become ill, hemorrhaging from the lungs. After hearing the news of the death of his father-in-law, he sees the black monk again and then dies. A strange tale.
Gutenberg
“Rothschild's Fiddle” [1894]
The story of an ill-tempered old man, Yakov, who loses his wife, becomes depressed, develops pneumonia, and dies himself, to summarize the story in a nutshell. Yakov is a coffin maker who in order to supplement his meager income plays the violin in a Jewish klezmer orchestra - although he dislikes Jews. He in particular is antagonistic to the flutist, Rothschildt, whom he regularly beats up. When his wife lies dying, she reminds him of their shared past but instead of listening, Yakov already starts building her coffin. After the burial Yakov is overcome by an acute depression and regrets his coldness and indifference towards his deceased wife. Sitting by the river, he has a sort of epiphany, realizing what a nasty and quarrelsome man he has become. But he catches a cold, which develops into pneumonia. Before dying, he bequeaths his violin to Rothschildt.
Gutenberg
“The Student” [1894]
An Easter story. In the night of Good Friday a clerical student happens to meet two widows warming themselves at a fire in the open. He tells them the story of the Apostle Peter who three times denied Jesus, but later was overcome with remorse and forgiven - showing the hope of redemption for all humans. Both the student and his listeners are overcome by the story and filled with a feeling of mysterious happiness.
Gutenberg
"The Head-gardener's Story" [1894]
The story of Thomson, a doctor who was such a good man that nobody could imagine that anyone would do him harm. Then the doctor is found murdered and a vagrant is arrested as he is in the possession of the doctor's snuffbox. The judge, however, acquits the vagrant, because he can't admit the thought that anybody would sink so low as to willfully harm the good doctor. An instance of typical 19th century humanism and belief in basic human decency that would be shattered in the 20th century.
Gutenberg
“The Murder” [1895]
Two conservatively orthodox believers who run an inn clash with a man who has a more relaxed view of religion. The argument becomes so heated that they end up killing him. Sent to Siberia, the murderer first looses his faith, but then regains it in a sort of spiritual rebirth.
Gutenberg
“Ariadne” [1895]
On a steamer bound for Sebastopol, Shamokhin tells the story of his love for his neighbor Ariadne, a most beautiful but also very cold woman. She elopes with another, married man, but when things go bad, asks Shamokhin to join her in Italy. But the married man is still there and obviously the lover of Ariadne, making for an awkward menage-a-trois. Only when his money runs out a year later, does he go back to his wife and children. Now Shamokhin becomes Ariadne's lover. He is caught in her web: although his money, too, runs out, and he feels his life has been destroyed by his obsession for Ariadne, he is unable to extricate himself, and keeps running after her.
Gutenberg
"Three Years" [1895]
Another of Chekhov's five novellas, showing how people can change in the course of three years. When visiting his severely ill sister, Laptev falls in love with Julia, the 22-year-old daughter of the doctor treating the sister. The bland Yulia marries the good-hearted Laptev, not because she is attracted to him, but because she feels bad about disappointing him and also because she wants to live in the big city, Moscow. Although Laptev remains in love with Yulia, the marriage is not a success - Yulia dislikes her husband and his family. But she does not act on the cheap advice of a friend to take a lover or return to her father. The sister dies and her children stay for a while with the couple. Laptev and Yulia have a baby but the child soon dies of diphtheria. Then Laptev's family business fails and his brother has to be put into an asylum. Now Laptev becomes depressed... and, for the first time, Yulia, starts feeling tenderness for her battered husband. The story shows how people are neither good nor bad, they all have their faults. They muddle through to make the best of a given situation and with the passage of time, accommodation occurs. From blind infatuation in the case of Yakov and dislike in the case of Yulia, the feelings between the married couple finally mature into mutual understanding and appreciation.
Gutenberg
Chekhov Stories in Five Parts:
Chekhov (Stories 1): Earliest Comical Stories (1882-1885)
Chekhov (Stories 2): The Years of High Production (1886-87)
Chekhov (Stories 3): Period of Maturity A (1888-1891)
Chekhov (Stories 4): Period of Maturity B (1892-1895)