SOURCE: Brewster, Dorothy and Angus Burrell. “Salvaging the Short Story: Chekhov and Mansfield Continued.” In Dead Reckonings in Fiction, pp. 71–100. Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1925.

In the following essay, Brewster and Burrell continue their deliberation on Chekhov’s and Mansfield's short fiction.

I

Although the stories we have been discussing [see previous essay] are not, according to conventional definition, Short Stories, something does happen in them by way of finality or climax. Yegorusha comes to the end of his journey; Harry Kember tries to seduce Beryl Fairfield. But what of the stories where absolutely nothing comes off?

Some things in life happen as they ought to, and some very much as they ought not to, and others just do not happen at all. Situations call for the gesture of understanding, the act of friendship, the offer of sympathy, the avowal of love. These possibilities are latent, but something...