In Anton Chekhov's short story 'Happiness' from 1887, a horseman approaches two shepherds just before dawn on a summer's night. He tells them the story of a wicked old man without moral who had died without sharing the location of a secret, enchanted treasure with anyone. As the horseman takes his leave, the shepherds are left to reflect on the interconnected nature of greed, temptation and the pursuit of happiness: Is it possible to find happiness without wealth? Or is happiness nothing but a man-made fairy-tale character in the story that is life?

A prolific writer of seven plays, a novel and hundreds of short stories, Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) is considered one of the best practitioners of the short story genre in literature. True to life and painfully morbid with his miserable and realistic depictions of Russian everyday life, Chekhov’s characters drift between humor, melancholy, artistic ambition, and death. Some of his best-known works include the plays "Uncle Vanya", "The Seagull", and "The Cherry Orchard", where Chekhov dramatizes and portrays social and existential problems. His short stories unearth mystery beneath ordinary situations, the failure and horror present in everyday life.