Short Fiction · Chapters

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Chapter companions for Short Fiction by Vsevolod Garshin.

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Chapter 1
Short Fiction
This chapter presents a collection of short fiction pieces, exploring themes of psychological turmoil, social marginalization, and the horrors of war through various characters and their experiences.
Chapter 2
Coward
The narrator grapples with his pacifist convictions as the war drags on, facing the inevitability of his own conscription. He visits the dying Kuzma Thomich, whose suffering and tender moments with Mary Petrovna highlight the personal cost of war. A conversation with Vassili Petrovich recounts the story of a surgeon who hanged himself rather than endure the horrors of the battlefield, deepening the narrator's existential dread.
Chapter 3
Four Days
The narrator, Ivanoff, lies wounded on a battlefield for four days, reflecting on the horrors of war, the death of a Turkish soldier he killed, and his own suffering. He crawls to the Turk's water bottle to survive, experiences delirium and pain, and is eventually rescued by stretcher-bearers. After being taken to a hospital, a professor tells him he will live but has lost a leg.
Chapter 4
An Incident
The chapter recounts a disturbing incident during the war where a soldier, driven to madness by the heat and exhaustion, attacks a fellow soldier. The narrator describes the chaos and the brutal response from the officers, highlighting the psychological toll of war.
Chapter 5
I
The chapter describes a forced march of a Russian battalion from Kovachitsa to Papkio under extreme heat, the soldiers' physical exhaustion, and the camp life and rumors during a two-week halt. It also recounts a medical inspection that turns into an alarm, leading to a rapid deployment.

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Short Fiction

Coward

Four Days

An Incident

I