The Steppe and Other Stories Book

"…and now the boy was sitting on the box beside the coachman Deniska, holding on to his elbow to keep from falling off, and dancing up and down like a kettle on the hob, with no notion where he was going or what he was going for. The rapid motion through the air blew out his red shirt like a balloon on his back and made his new hat with a peacock's feather in it, like a coachman's, keep slipping on to the back of his head. He felt himself an intensely unfortunate person, and had an inclination to cry."
A little boy leaves his home and first time he finds himself face to face with the huge outside world and people that live there. He is sad and full of child's fears and sorrows and a new unknown life lies ahead.
Chekhov masterfully describes boy's feelings and his experience of the journey and his pictures of nature are brilliant.
"Suddenly, exactly over his head, the sky cracked with a fearful deafening din; he huddled up and held his breath, waiting for the fragments to fall upon his head and back. He inadvertently opened his eyes and saw a blinding intense light flare out and flash five times on his fingers, his wet sleeves, and on the trickles of water running from the mat upon the bales and down to the ground. There was a fresh peal of thunder as violent and awful; the sky was not growling and rumbling now, but uttering short crashing sounds like the crackling of dry wood."
And The Duel is florid portrayal of provincial living: deadly boredom and stagnation, wicked gossiping and envy. And the hostility of two main characters turns into an acidic travesty.
"A silence followed. Boyko took a pair of pistols out of a box; one was given to Von Koren and one to Laevsky, and then there followed a difficulty which afforded a brief amusement to the zoologist and the seconds. It appeared that of all the people present not one had ever in his life been at a duel, and no one knew precisely how they ought to stand, and what the seconds ought to say and do. But then Boyko remembered and began, with a smile, to explain.
'Gentlemen, who remembers the description in Lermontov?' asked Von Koren, laughing. 'In Turgenev, too, Bazarov had a duel with some one…'
'There's no need to remember,' said Ustimovitch impatiently. 'Measure the distance, that's all.'"
The Steppe and The Duel are Anton Chekhov's two best novellas and they are my favourite as well.