Bunin was working upon the story for a long time. After the magazine publication he prepared the text for Pereval anthology, and in it cut several fragments, notably description of a provincial town at noon. The story contained autobiographical elements. A visit to Tolstoyans, a walk over an old Malorossia town, in which Poltava can easily be guessed, a romantic relations with a girl. Tolstoyans described here had their prototypes; Pavlovsky mentioned there was Drozhin, a village teacher who died in 1892 after serving in a disciplinarian battalion for his refusal to serve in the army (as describe in The Life of Bunin, p. 85)
