Contains: Ward No. 6, The Black Monk, The Grasshopper, The Two Volodyas, A Woman's Kingdom, The Student, Three Years, Murder, Ariadna Chekhov believed that a writer should not provide solutions but should describe a situation so truthfully that the reader can no longer evade it. These stories depict extreme forms of mental experience — depression, religious fanaticism, megalomania — and more everyday feelings of boredom, frustration, and alienation. In each story, the characters experience moments of insight or spiritual epiphany in which they come face to face with the truth of their existence.