The tales themselves are not related to one another, except that they are all said in the introduction to be stories told by various people to a recently deceased landowner, Ivan Petrovich Belkin.
The introduction continues to say that Belkin was an interesting and mysterious man, even to the point that the woman he left his estate to had never met him.
This story was told to Belkin by Colonel I.L.P., who in the early days of his military career was stationed at a country outpost.
He is then considered to be a coward by most of the officers, but explains his situation to the narrator, his only confidant: years ago he engaged in a duel, in which his opponent was eating cherries while waiting for him to shoot.
He decided that as life apparently was meaningless to the endlessly fortunate young man, he would not shoot, but rather ask to postpone the duel.
The reason for their relationship is not specifically given, but the story famously states "Marya Gavrilovna was raised on French novels and consequently was in love."
On the night the ceremony is to take place, she almost doesn't go as in addition to her growing anxiety, a terrible snowstorm is occurring, but her attendant persuades her to go.
The next morning, Marya Gavrilovna returns home and goes to sleep as if nothing has happened, but she soon grows gravely ill and becomes delirious with fever.
The tale concerns an undertaker, Adrian Prokhorov, who moves from the Basmanny District in northeastern Moscow to Nikitskaya Street, west of the Kremlin.
They invite him to a wedding anniversary dinner with all of the local merchants, where after a long night of card games and other entertainment, several toasts are proposed.
The story opens with the narrator complaining to the reader in a humorous fashion about collegiate registrars, the lowest of the fourteen ranks in the Imperial Russian civil service, who run posting stations along the country's roads, providing such services as fresh horses, beds, and food to travelers.
After this opening tirade, however, the narrator relents, and states that he will tell us a story about one particular sympathetic station master he met during his extensive travels on official business.
Some time after the narrator's first visit, a dashing hussar captain (ninth rank) called Minsky comes to the posting station, and like many other visitors, has to wait until new horses could be prepared.
The hussar is initially enraged that someone of his rank would be forced to wait by a fourteenth-grade civil servant, and the station master calls Dunya in to calm him.
The town has now been off the imperial road for several years, and upon visiting the old station master's house, the narrator learns that he has died, most likely from alcoholism.
The story involves two young people, Lizaveta Muromsky and Alexei Berestov, whose fathers are both wealthy landowners who dislike each because of the way the other runs his estate.
Nastya tells Lizaveta (whose father tiresomely insists on calling her Betsy) of Alexei's behavior at the name day festival, relating how energetic and entertaining he was, even joining in the peasants' games.
Lizaveta already knew Alexei through society, and held little opinion of him, namely because he acted in a melancholy manner, as was common among young, upper-class early 19th century Russians.
After hearing that he acted in such a manner at the name-day festival, she resolved to meet him in a peasant's costume collecting mushrooms in a forest Alexei frequents while hunting.
Lizaveta meets Alexei in the forest as planned, and begins to talk to him in the guise and dialect of the peasant girl Akulina.
Because Lizaveta has a reputation as a prankster, her father allows her to do so, and the dinner passes without her identity being revealed, thanks to her rich clothing and liberal use of make-up.