Dr. Ragin runs an asylum in a Russian provincial town, does nothing to improve its conditions, and gradually finds himself confined within it. Chekhov wrote this as a long story or short novel, and Lenin reportedly said it made him feel as if he were locked up in Ward No. 6 himself. The story is about complicity, about how we accommodate injustice, about the thin line between keeper and kept. The prose is Chekhov's characteristic blend of observation and restraint. Ragin's philosophical detachment becomes indistinguishable from moral failure. The ward is everywhere. The story remains uncomfortably relevant.