The Boor, A Comedy in One Act

While Anton Chekhov is best known for his lengthier plays, he also wrote one-act comedies. The Boor is one of those. In The Boor, a crude and rude landowner, Smirnov, visits a grieving widow, Yelena, to collect on a debt her departed husband owed him. He needs the money today as he has to pay tomorrow. Her estate manager is not there and she cannot pay until the man comes back the day after tomorrow. The boor decides he will camp out in her salon till she forks over the money. The play develops to the point that the boor challenges the widow to a duel with totally unexpected consequences.