The Student (short story)
He recounts to them the canonical Gospels' story of the Denial of Peter and upon finishing, notes that these two women are deeply moved, leading him to conclude that all of history is connected through truth and beauty.
He parts with the widows and continues homeward, thinking that his story troubled Lukerya and made Vasilisa weep not because he told it well but because the tale was relevant to them nineteen centuries later.
For this edition, Chekhov clarified why Vasilisa wept, heightened Ivan's reaction to the dark and cold near the story's beginning, and made clearer the connection between truth, beauty, and human history.
"[8] Mark Stanley Swift commented that Veniamin's reading of the story "confuses the poignant portrayal of the faithful and the intimate depiction of religious experience for personal belief on the part of the author".
[15] Jackson wrote that Vasilisa and Lukerya are the story's true heroes, since "in the most essential terms of human experience they have kept the faith: theirs is the light of the biblical 'burning bush,' and they have kept the fires burning".
"[2] L. S. K. le Fleming wrote that Chekhov used partially antonymous sets of words like "cold", "wind", and "blown" and "fire", "bonfire", and "heat"[c] in a way that related them both to the condition of the student and that of the environment: at the story's outset, Ivan grapples with thoughts of suffering as cold winds blow, then gains newfound physical and spiritual warmth at the bonfire where he relates the biblical tale and, as he departs, the "glow of warmth in his soul is even reflected back onto the natural scene in a crimson glow which lingers in the sky from the sunset.
"[18] According to Rayfield, the language in "The Student" begins as "harsh and laconic", then becomes "rich and gentle" as the protagonist recounts his story, then mirrors in its rhythm the natures of characters after he is finished.
[17] Ivan's language, as described by Rayfield, is a mishmash of childlike repetition of adjectives and Church Slavonic, "mingling the past with the present in the very texture of the prose".
[19] Rayfield described the third-to-last paragraph as "a Tolstoyan series of syllogisms" that are clumsily constructed by Ivan who, in the final paragraph–a single flowing sentence of more than 100 words–rejects the cerebral syllogistic approach in favor of an emotional climax.
[9] According to Tatiana Spektor, "The Student" exists as part of "the traditional Russian dialogue between religion and atheism" due to its exploration of philosophical questions by means of literary texts (here the Denial of Peter).
[24] Kerry McSweeney wrote that Ivan's revelation at the story's end may also provide a similar feeling of epiphany to the reader, writing that "What is central is the continuing power of Chekhov's artwork to establish connections–to forge new links in a living chain that is not vertical, timeless, and sacred but horizontal, temporal and secular.
