“The Man in a Case” is the first of three stories that Chekhov wrote around the year 1898 about the lives and characters of the schoolmaster Burkin, the veterinarian Ivan Ivanovitch and the landowner Alehin. This first story introduces the ludicrously cautious character Byelikov, a professor of Greek who is afraid of anything that involves risk and novelty. Burkin describes how, despite this temperament, Byelikov comes very near getting married…