Who is Anton Pavlovich Chekhov—so familiar and beloved from childhood, and becoming ever more “complex” as we grow older, acquiring almost ungraspable philosophical depth? A graduate of a provincial gymnasium who came to Moscow to study for a “doctor,” and, near the end of his life, met his greatest love. A person who brought glory not only to Russian, but to all world literature; who lived only forty-four years, yet seemed like the wisest old man—this is the hero of the brilliant study by the well-known French writer Henri Troyat.