The story begins with a husband and wife on an evening stroll walking by a train station. It seems they are alone, but they are not. The third character is the moon, which “peeped up from the drifting cloudlets and frowned, as it seemed, envying their happiness and regretting her tedious and utterly superfluous virginity.” I think this is the first time that Chekhov has given an inanimate object a personality. And she is a jealous, self-pitying moon. When an unexpected uncle shows up with his family and a governess in tow at the station, the couple turn on each other, much to the petty moon’s delight. Had the formerly happy couple not stopped to watch the train arrive, but dined on chicken and sardines in their cottage instead, the family still would have appeared, upending their tranquility. If that had happened, would the moon have enjoyed the couple’s misery as well?