Notes from the Underground

The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" is a short story written by Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky published in 1848. The piece is narrated by an awkward outcast attending a Christmas party. He observes the party's guest of honour and takes special interest in one of the children. The narrator begins by mentioning to the reader that he had just been to a wedding but recalls a Christmas party that he had found more interesting. The party was given with the pretext of being a children's party, but its real purpose was for the wealthy host's family to talk business with rich members of the community. The wealthiest guest was Julian Mastakovich, a rotund landowner. Without anyone to talk to, the narrator fell to simply observing the guests. The narrator takes particular interest in the children. They were given gifts in accordance with their social standing. The eleven-year-old daughter of a wealthy government contractor received an expensive doll, while the poorest child, the son of the family governess, received only a small book without illustrations or even a front and back cover. After being bullied by the other richer boys, the poor boy retreats to another room where he and the rich daughter play happily with the doll. Julian Matsakovich also retreats from the rest of the crowd to observe the rich daughter, who already had a dowry set aside of 300,000 rubles. As Mastakovich observes the girl, he calculates what her dowry (with interest) would be at age sixteen, and he comes up with the astounding sum of 500,000 rubles. Mastakovich approaches the girl and kisses her on the head. The girl recoils from his gesture, and she looks to her playmate for protection. Mastakovich tries to scare the poor boy away while trying to get a promise of love from the young girl, and eventually he causes a scene where he chases the poor boy around the party, whipping at him with his handkerchief. The wedding that the narrator came across five years later was indeed the wedding between Julian Mastakovich and the rich girl, now sixteen. Famous works of the author Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Poor Folk, The Double, The Landlady, Netochka Nezvanova, Uncle's Dream, The Village of Stepanchikovo, Humiliated and Insulted, The House of the Dead, Notes from Underground, Crime and Punishment, The Gambler, The Idiot, The Eternal Husband, Demons, The Adolescent, The Brothers Karamazov.

This story tells a reader about a twelve-year-old girl Sophie keen on reading books about adventure and magic. When Sophie and her parents had been already asleep, a small mouse Patrick speaking with the speech of men wandered into their house to find some food. Patrick and Sophie made good friends. Patrick was homeless, and Sophie let him stay in her house. Once, Patrick and Sophie decided to take a stroll to a lake.

"The Lady with the Dog" is a short story by Anton Chekhov. First published in 1899, it describes an adulterous affair between Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, an unhappily married Moscow banker, and Anna Sergeyevna Von Diderits, a young married woman, an affair which begins while both are vacationing alone in the Crimean sea resort of Yalta. The story comprises four parts: part I describes the initial meeting in Yalta, part II the consummation of the affair and the remaining time in Yalta, part III Gurov's return to Moscow and his visit to Anna's town, and part IV Anna's visits to Moscow. This is one of Chekhov's most famous pieces of short fiction. Vladimir Nabokov, for instance, considers it as one of the greatest short stories ever written. Chekhov Anton Pavlovich – author of the famous collection of “Stories”, the novel “Chamber No. 6”, the plays “The Cherry Orchard” and “The Seagull”, the stories: “Three Sisters”, “A Lady with a Dog”, “Fat and Slim”, “A Man in case "," Longing "," Death of an official "," Chameleon "and others. For more than a century, the works of A.P. Chekhov have conquered world theater scenes: in terms of the number of plays played, he is second only to the English playwright William Shakespeare.

"God Sees the Truth, But Waits" is a short story by Russian author Leo Tolstoy first published in 1872. The story, about a man sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit, takes the form of a parable of forgiveness. English translations were also published under titles «The Confessed Crime» and «Exiled to Siberia». The concept of the story of a man wrongfully accused of murder and banished to Siberia also appears in one of Tolstoy's previous works, War and Peace, during a philosophical discussion between two characters who relate the story and argue how the protagonist of their story deals with injustice and fate. Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov is a merchant living in Vladimir, a town in Russia. Although Aksionov is prone to drinking, he is not violent, and he is responsible and well liked by people that know him. One day he decides to go to a fair as a business venture, but his wife pleads for him not to go because of a nightmare she had the previous night in which he had greyed hair. Aksionov disregards his wife's dream and leaves for the fair… Famous works of the author Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace, Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Kingdom of God Is Within You, Resurrection.