"A Malefactor" (Russian: Злоумышленник, romanized: Zloumyshlennik) is an 1885 short story by Anton Chekhov.

200) issue of Peterburgskaya Gazeta, in its Fleeting Notes section, subtitled "A Little Scene" (Сценка) and signed A. Chekhonte (А. Чехонте).

[1] Vladimir Gilyarovsky maintained that the prototype for the character of Denis Grigoryev was a peasant named Nikita Pantyukhin, from the village Kraskovo in Moscow Governorate.

[2] "Anton Pavlovich was trying to put it to him that one was not supposed to unscrew nuts off railroad tracks, which could cause train crash, but Nikita seemed to be unable to understand him... 'Sure I know what's allowed, what's not.

[1] In Chekhov's lifetime the story was translated into Bulgarian, Hungarian, German, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak and Czech languages.