Chekhov made several excursions into the drama, but he was not given to plot, and all his efforts were subtle and intellectual, so that it requires a company of brilliant actors to present his plays. The most important are “The Cherry Orchard,” “The Seagull,” “The Bear,” and “The Gray Stocking.” * * * * * In the short-story our author excelled, but here too his tendency was not toward plot. The objectivist in fiction tends toward the impressionistic sketch, and Chekhov was a master in sensing a mood outside of himself and relentlessly reproducing the impression. Of “Darling,” Tolstoi has said that the author intended to laugh at Darling, sneer at her self-sacrifice; but in spite of his plan he had created a character of beauty. Olenka Plemyannikof, the daughter of a retired “college assessor,” cannot live unless she is loving some one. She loves her father, her mother, her relatives, and when at school she had fallen in love with the French-master. Observing her rosy cheeks and kind expression, and the naïve smile playing on her face when she is pleased, every one feels attracted to her, and frequently women stop in the midst of a conversation and grasp her hand, exclaiming, “You darling!” Koukin, manager and proprietor of the Tivoli pleasure gardens, occupies the wing in the Plemyannikofs’ house. Troubles connected with rainy evenings, when his audiences are small, touch Olenka’s kind heart, and she stays awake at night until he comes home, so that she may smile encouragement through her window. At length they marry, and their life runs smoothly, Olenka helping her husband in many ways. Her radiant face alone draws people, and she tells them that the theatre is the greatest thing in the world. “What a wonderful man you are!” she says adoringly to her husband. But when on a business trip to Moscow Koukin dies; and Olenka feels then that the end of the world has come for her. Three months after, returning from church one day, she meets Vassili Andreyich Pastovalof, manager of a timber merchant’s yard, and he tells her that she should bear submissively the fate which God willed. His grave voice stays in her memory--and shortly afterward they are married. They live happily, and now it seems to Olenka that she has been in the timber trade all her life. She echoes her husband’s opinions--whatever he thinks, she thinks, wherever he wants to go, or not to go, she does the same. When her friends suggest recreation, her reply is, “I and Vassichka have no time to frequent theatres. We are business people, with no time for trifles. Besides, what good is there in theatres?” Thus they live harmoniously for six years. But one cold morning, after drinking some hot tea, Pastovalof steps into the yard without his hat and catches a chill. Four months later Olenka is again a widow.