Published: 1888
Category: Fantasy
Text: Classic Reader
Summary:
The devil fulfils a poor cobbler's wish to be a wealthy gentleman.
Points of interest:
There is a feeling of unrelieved grumpiness affecting all the characters, and the story itself. Not sure if this was what Chekov intended given his closing sentence:
"...and there was nothing in life for which one would give the devil even a tiny scrap of one's soul."Haven't read enough of his work to get a feel for his religious opinions; in this story Fydor, the cobbler, notes, while in church, that "In church the same honor is done to rich and poor alike." He makes no comment on how the church deals with different states of the soul although it is implied that sinners go to hell. Or perhaps this is the whole point; there is nothing in life of equal value to the soul, nothing worth the risk of an eternity in hell. Yet you get the definite sense, from the story, that this fact leaves everyone, rich and poor alike, dissatisfied with their situation in life.
