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Abstract: The article is devoted to the analysis of A. P. Chekhov's story «A Living Chattel», which was awarded only a few short references in the literary works, but anticipates the artistic strategies of the writer in the mature period of creativity. The main subject of this work is the phenomenon of implicit narration. It is a question of hidden, implicit narratives, indirectly expressed in the text with the help of constructions with direct and improperly direct speech. The referential field of such narratives encompasses possible events postulated by the cognitive activity of the characters. The main purpose of the article is to determine the forms of representation and function of implicit narratives in the structure of the Chekhov’s text. The methods of contemporary narratology conceptually grounded in the researches of V. I. Tiupa, V. Schmid, M.-L. Ryan, A. Palmer, P. Ricœur are used in the article. Weaving the «web» of conflicting implicit narratives, Chekhov creates the image of a character in danger of disidentity. Trying to preserve his «self», he creates an alternative version of reality, which, on the one hand, conceals unseemly acts, on the other hand, gives a teleological meaning to his own existence. Another important result of the study is the creation of analytical tools that can serve as a model for further research in the field of the study of implicit narration in literary prose.