With the delicacy that characterizes him, Chekhov, in the nine stories of the collection, explores the "great mystery": he delves into the souls of his heroes, seeking the meaning and significance of love.

From the vast Russian countryside, of wealthy landowners and their leisurely lives, to Moscow and St. Petersburg, with their frivolous, bustling everyday life of salon people, the author, guided by his gift of sensitivity, captures on his pages - inspired by love - an entire world.

Through fateful and doomed loves, unexpected and unfulfilled ones, some foolish and others full of passion, Chekhov, with his known mastery, dissects the souls of his characters, analyzes, observes soberly or even judges - with a always subtle touch -, transforming the narratives of the volume into a thorough, elegant, graceful, and colorful literary study on love.