The Beautiful Absurdity of Christian Meaning — Anton Chekhov — The Student

No one has mastered the brevity of short stories like Chekhov. The student is less than four pages long, one of his shortest and most moving short stories. Before I recount (spoilers) the narrative you can find it easily online if you’ve never encountered it:

A clerical student called Ivan is walking home on a cold Russian evening, Good Friday, contemplating that the cold and darkness and bitterness of the night has been experienced throughout history. He sees a fire and meets two women, Vasilisa and Lukerya, warming themselves. After asking if they attended the gospel reading, he begins to recount the story of Peter’s denial of Christ. Vasilisa weeps, Lukerya became “tensed and strained, like that of someone stifling severe pain”. The student leaves them, walking into the fierce winter wind.

As the student walks away he considers how the effect of the story upon the two women meant what happened to Peter was somehow connected to them, he feels a “frenzy of joy” and has to stop to catch his breath, considering the past connected to the present by an unbroken chain of events, that he had seen both ends of the chain, touched one and felt the other move. He realises that “truth and beauty” have guided life from that moment to the present day and walks away inexplicably happy, feeling life to be…