Excellent People
Author: Anton Chekhov
Read “Excellent People” by Anton Chekhov in Russian and English in Bibliott on your phone and tablet.
Languages: RU, English
Genre: Essay, Satire, Short story
Free to read
A narrator observes the self-satisfied writer Vladimir Liadovsky and his exhausted sister Vera, whose real life resists her brother’s melodrama.
Characters
- Vladimir Semyonitch Liadovsky — a literary journalist and Vera’s brother: A self-satisfied, theatrical man who turns others’ pain into a literary pose.
- Vera Semyonovna — Vladimir’s sister, a woman doctor: An exhausted widow who has given up medicine, argues with her brother about non-resistance, and leaves to vaccinate peasants.
- the narrator — a fellow writer and friend of Vladimir Semyonitch: The family friend who hears Vladimir's complaints, buries him, and remembers him at the end.
- Ivan — Vera Semyonovna's late husband: The architect Vera married for love; he died of typhus a month after the wedding.