The Trial by Anton Chekhov. Short summary

5 seconds

A shopkeeper accuses his son of stealing money and flogs him in public. The shopkeeper’s buddies support him, but the money is in the shopkeeper’s pants.

1 minute

In the shopkeeper Kuzma Egorov’s hut the best men of the village have gathered: the paramedic Ivanov, the sexton Feofan, the chorister Mikhailo, the owner’s cousin and the gendarme Fortunatov. The men try Egorov’s son, the barber Serapion, for stealing money from his father’s box.

People have gathered outside the hut to watch the shopkeeper flog his son.

Kuzma asks why Serapion took the money and the sexton reads a lecture to the boy. Yegorov´s son denies at first that he took the money, but under pressure from the crowd, he humbles himself and confesses.

He lies down voluntarily on the bench and Yegorov flogs his son. After the flogging, it is discovered that the shopkeeper put the missing money in his pants and forgot it. Yegorov’s wife finds it.

The father apologizes to Serapion and offers him a drink to «burn out» the offence. The young man drinks and proudly leaves the hut.