Rara Avis

1 "Rara Avis" ("Rare Bird", 1886) is one of Chekhov’s shortest comic sketches: a single joke condensed into a few lines of dialogue between a crime novelist and a police detective. The novelist asks to be shown every variety of criminal underworld figure – swindlers, murderers, counterfeiters, card-sharps – and the detective agrees readily to each request. Only when the novelist finally asks to be introduced to a few "ideally honest people," needed for contrast in his novel, does the detective have to stop and think.

2 The Latin title – "rare bird," a phrase for something seldom seen – is the whole punchline stated in advance: honest men, in this joke’s logic, are rarer and harder to produce on demand than any criminal. The piece belongs to Chekhov’s mid-1880s run of very short "anekdot" sketches written for the humor press, built entirely around a single compact reversal. No ethnic slurs or offensive language appear in the source.