September 4, 2025 • 14 mins
A young clerical student, returning home on a cold Good Friday evening, experiences a profound revelation about human connection through time after sharing the biblical story of Peter's denial with two widows. What begins as a tale of despair transforms into a powerful realization about the unbroken chain linking past suffering to present emotions, ultimately restoring the student's sense of meaning and purpose.
• Setting of desolate Russian countryside with winter returning unexpectedly on Good Friday
• Student's initial pessimism about unchanging human suffering throughout history
• Encounter with two widows by their campfire where he retells Peter's denial of Jesus
• Unexpected emotional response from the women to the ancient biblical story
• Student's revelation about the continuity of human experience across centuries
• Final epiphany that "truth and beauty" have guided human life from biblical times to present
• Transformation from despair to seeing life as "enchanting, marvelous and full of lofty meaning"
Please like and leave a five-star rating and a review, and share this wonderful story with someone near.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, are you tired?
You will be, because this isRon Reads Boring Books and today
, for your displeasure, we'rereading the Student by Anton
(00:21):
Chekhov.
Let's begin At first.
The weather was fine and still.
The thrushes were calling, andin the swamps close by,
something alive droned pitifully, with a sound like blowing into
(00:43):
an empty bottle.
With a sound like blowing intoan empty bottle, a snipe flew by
and the shot aimed at it rangout with a gay resounding note
in the spring air.
But when it began to get darkin the forest, a cold,
penetrating wind blewinappropriately from the east
(01:06):
and everything sank into silence.
Needles of ice stretched acrossthe pools and it felt cheerless
, remote and lonely.
In the forest there was a whiffof winter.
Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of asacristan and a student of the
(01:36):
clerical academy, returning homefrom shooting, kept walking on
the path by the waterloggedmeadows.
His fingers were numb and hisface was burning with the wind.
It seemed to him that the coldthat had suddenly come on had
destroyed the order and harmonyof things, that nature itself
(01:59):
fell ill at ease, and that waswhy the evening darkness was
falling more rapidly than usual.
All around it was deserted andparticularly gloomy.
The only light was one gleamingin the window's gardens near
the river, the village overthree miles away, and everything
(02:24):
in the distance all around wasplunged in the cold evening mist
.
The student remembered that ashe had left the house, his
mother was sitting barefoot onthe floor in the entryway
cleaning the samovar while hisfather lay on the stove coughing
(02:45):
.
As it was Good Friday, nothinghad been cooked and the student
was terribly hungry and now,shrinking from the cold, he
thought that just such a windhad blown in the days of Rurik
and in the time of Ivan theTerrible and Peter, and in their
(03:08):
time there had been just thesame desperate poverty and
hunger, the same thatched roofswith holes in them, ignorance,
misery.
The same desolation around thesame darkness, the same feeling
of oppression.
Desolation around the samedarkness, the same feeling of
oppression.
All these had existed, didexist and would exist, and the
(03:30):
lapse of a thousand years wouldmake life no better.
And he did not want to go home.
The gardens were called thewidows because they were kept by
two widows, mother and daughter.
A campfire was burning brightly,with a crackling sound throwing
(03:54):
out light far around on theplowed earth.
The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fatold woman in a man's coat was
(04:17):
standing by and lookingthoughtfully into the fire.
Her daughter Lucaria, a littlepockmarked woman with a
stupid-looking face, was sittingon the ground washing a
cauldron in spoons.
Apparently they had just hadsupper.
There was a sound of men'svoices.
(04:40):
It was the laborers wateringtheir horses at the river.
Here you have winter back again, said the student going up to
the campfire.
Good evening, vasilisa started,but at once recognized him and
smiled cordially.
(05:01):
I did not know you.
God bless you.
She said You'll be rich, theytalked.
Vasilisa, a woman of experiencewho had been in service with
the gentry, first as a wet nurse, afterwards as a children's
nurse, expressed herself withrefinement and a soft, sedate
(05:24):
smile, never left her face.
Her daughter, lucuria, avillage peasant woman who had
been beaten by her husband,simply screwed up her eyes at
the student and said nothing.
She had a strange expressionlike that of a deaf mute At just
(05:49):
such a fire.
The Apostle Peter warmed himself, said the student, stretching
out his hands to the fire.
So it must have been cold thentoo.
Ah, what a terrible night itmust have been, granny, an
utterly dismal, long night.
He looked around at thedarkness, shook his head
(06:11):
abruptly and asked no doubt youhave heard the reading of the
twelve apostles.
Yes, I have answered, Vasilisa.
If you remember, at the lastsupper, Peter said to Jesus I am
ready to go with thee intodarkness and unto death.
(06:34):
And our Lord answered him.
Thus I say unto thee, peter,before the cock croweth thou
wilt have denied me thrice.
After the supper, jesus wentthrough the agony of death in
the garden and prayed, and poorPeter was weary in spirit and
(06:56):
faint, his eyelids were heavyand he could not struggle
against sleep.
He fell asleep.
Then you heard how Judas, thesame night, kissed Jesus and
betrayed him to his tormentors.
Wait a minute, I was supposedto be reading that with the
(07:23):
student's voice, so let's startover.
After the supper, jesus wentthrough the agony of death in
the garden and prayed, and poorPeter was weary in spirit and
faint, his eyelids were heavyand he could not struggle
against sleep.
He fell asleep.
Then you heard how Judas, thesame night, kissed Jesus and
(07:46):
betrayed him to his tormentors.
They took him bound to the highpriest and beat him, while
Peter exhausted, worn out withmisery and alarm, hardly awake,
you know, feeling that somethingawful was just about to happen
on earth, followed behind.
He loved Jesus passionately,intensely, and now he saw him
(08:06):
from afar how he was beaten.
Lucaria left the spoons andfixed in an immovable stare upon
the student.
They came to the high priests.
He went on.
They began to question Jesus.
In the meantime, the laborersmade a fire in the yard, as it
(08:31):
was cold, and warmed themselves.
Peter too stood with them.
It was cold and warmedthemselves.
Peter too stood with them nearthe fire and warmed himself, as
I am doing.
A woman seeing him said he waswith Jesus too.
That is as much as to say thathe too should have been taken to
be questioned.
And all the laborers werestanding near the fire must have
looked sourly and suspiciouslyat him, because he was confused
(08:54):
and said I don't know him.
A little while after, again,someone recognized him as one of
Jesus' disciples and said Thouart too one of them.
But he denied it.
And for the third time someoneturned to him and said why did I
(09:14):
not see thee with him in thegarden today?
For the third time he denied it.
And immediately after that timethe cock crowed and Peter,
looking from afar off at Jesus,remembered the words he had said
unto him in the evening.
He remembered.
He came to himself, went out ofthe yard and wept bitterly,
(09:35):
bitterly.
In the gospel it is written hewent out and wept bitterly, I
imagine it.
The still still dark, darkgarden, and in the stillness
faintly audible, smothered,sobbing.
And in the stillness, faintlyaudible, smothered, sobbing, the
(10:00):
student sighed and sank intothought.
Still smiling, vasilisasuddenly gave a gulp, big tears
flowed freely down her cheeksand she screamed her face from
the fire with her sleeve, asthough ashamed of her tears, and
Luckerya stared immovably atthe student, flushed crimson and
(10:26):
her expression became strainedand heavy, like that of someone
enduring intense pain.
The laborers came back from theriver, and one of them, riding
a horse, was quite near and thelight from the fire quivered
upon them.
The student said good night tothe widows and went on, and
(10:54):
again the darkness was about himand his fingers began to be
numb.
A cruel wind was blowing,winter had really winter really
had come back, and it did notfeel as though Easter would be
the day after tomorrow.
The student was thinking aboutVasilisa, thinking about
(11:26):
Vasilisa.
Vasilisa, since she had shedtears.
All that had happened to Peterthe night before the crucifixion
must have some relation to her.
Dot, dot, dot.
He looked around.
The solitary light was stillgleaming in the darkness and no
figures could be seen near it.
Now the student thought againthat if Vasilisa had shed tears
and her daughter had beentroubled, it was evident that
(11:48):
what he had just been tellingthem about, which had happened
nineteen centuries ago, had arelation to the present, to both
women, to the desolate village,to himself, to all people.
The woman had wept, not becausehe could tell the story
touchingly, but because Peterwas near to her, because her
(12:09):
whole being was interested inwhat was passing in Peter's soul
, and joy suddenly stirred inhis soul and he even stopped for
a minute to take breath.
The past, he thought, is linkedwith the present by an unbroken
chain of events flowing one outof another.
(12:31):
It seemed to him that he hadjust seen both ends of that
chain, that when he touched oneend, the other quivered.
When he crossed the river bythe ferry boat and afterwards,
mounting the hill, looked at hisvillage and towards the west,
(12:53):
where the cold, crimson sunsetlay a narrow streak of light, he
thought that truth and beauty,which had guided human life
there in the garden and in theyard of the high priest, had
continued without interruptionto this day and had evidently
always been the chief thing inhuman life and in all earthly
(13:15):
life, and in all earthly life,indeed in the feeling of youth,
health, vigor.
He was only 22, and theinexpressible, sweet expectation
of happiness, of unknown,mysterious happiness, took
(13:36):
possession of him little bylittle, and life seemed to him
enchanting, marvelous and fullof lofty meaning.
Well, this has been the Studentby Anton Chekhov, check Hove.
(14:00):
Please like and leave afive-star rating and a review,
and share this wonderful storywith someone near.
Hello, are you tired?
You will be, because this isRon Reads Boring Books and today
, for your displeasure, we'rereading the Student by Anton
(00:21):
Chekhov.
Let's begin At first.
The weather was fine and still.
The thrushes were calling, andin the swamps close by,
something alive droned pitifully, with a sound like blowing into
(00:43):
an empty bottle.
With a sound like blowing intoan empty bottle, a snipe flew by
and the shot aimed at it rangout with a gay resounding note
in the spring air.
But when it began to get darkin the forest, a cold,
penetrating wind blewinappropriately from the east
(01:06):
and everything sank into silence.
Needles of ice stretched acrossthe pools and it felt cheerless
, remote and lonely.
In the forest there was a whiffof winter.
Ivan Velikopolsky, the son of asacristan and a student of the
(01:36):
clerical academy, returning homefrom shooting, kept walking on
the path by the waterloggedmeadows.
His fingers were numb and hisface was burning with the wind.
It seemed to him that the coldthat had suddenly come on had
destroyed the order and harmonyof things, that nature itself
(01:59):
fell ill at ease, and that waswhy the evening darkness was
falling more rapidly than usual.
All around it was deserted andparticularly gloomy.
The only light was one gleamingin the window's gardens near
the river, the village overthree miles away, and everything
(02:24):
in the distance all around wasplunged in the cold evening mist
.
The student remembered that ashe had left the house, his
mother was sitting barefoot onthe floor in the entryway
cleaning the samovar while hisfather lay on the stove coughing
(02:45):
.
As it was Good Friday, nothinghad been cooked and the student
was terribly hungry and now,shrinking from the cold, he
thought that just such a windhad blown in the days of Rurik
and in the time of Ivan theTerrible and Peter, and in their
(03:08):
time there had been just thesame desperate poverty and
hunger, the same thatched roofswith holes in them, ignorance,
misery.
The same desolation around thesame darkness, the same feeling
of oppression.
Desolation around the samedarkness, the same feeling of
oppression.
All these had existed, didexist and would exist, and the
(03:30):
lapse of a thousand years wouldmake life no better.
And he did not want to go home.
The gardens were called thewidows because they were kept by
two widows, mother and daughter.
A campfire was burning brightly,with a crackling sound throwing
(03:54):
out light far around on theplowed earth.
The widow Vasilisa, a tall, fatold woman in a man's coat was
(04:17):
standing by and lookingthoughtfully into the fire.
Her daughter Lucaria, a littlepockmarked woman with a
stupid-looking face, was sittingon the ground washing a
cauldron in spoons.
Apparently they had just hadsupper.
There was a sound of men'svoices.
(04:40):
It was the laborers wateringtheir horses at the river.
Here you have winter back again, said the student going up to
the campfire.
Good evening, vasilisa started,but at once recognized him and
smiled cordially.
(05:01):
I did not know you.
God bless you.
She said You'll be rich, theytalked.
Vasilisa, a woman of experiencewho had been in service with
the gentry, first as a wet nurse, afterwards as a children's
nurse, expressed herself withrefinement and a soft, sedate
(05:24):
smile, never left her face.
Her daughter, lucuria, avillage peasant woman who had
been beaten by her husband,simply screwed up her eyes at
the student and said nothing.
She had a strange expressionlike that of a deaf mute At just
(05:49):
such a fire.
The Apostle Peter warmed himself, said the student, stretching
out his hands to the fire.
So it must have been cold thentoo.
Ah, what a terrible night itmust have been, granny, an
utterly dismal, long night.
He looked around at thedarkness, shook his head
(06:11):
abruptly and asked no doubt youhave heard the reading of the
twelve apostles.
Yes, I have answered, Vasilisa.
If you remember, at the lastsupper, Peter said to Jesus I am
ready to go with thee intodarkness and unto death.
(06:34):
And our Lord answered him.
Thus I say unto thee, peter,before the cock croweth thou
wilt have denied me thrice.
After the supper, jesus wentthrough the agony of death in
the garden and prayed, and poorPeter was weary in spirit and
(06:56):
faint, his eyelids were heavyand he could not struggle
against sleep.
He fell asleep.
Then you heard how Judas, thesame night, kissed Jesus and
betrayed him to his tormentors.
Wait a minute, I was supposedto be reading that with the
(07:23):
student's voice, so let's startover.
After the supper, jesus wentthrough the agony of death in
the garden and prayed, and poorPeter was weary in spirit and
faint, his eyelids were heavyand he could not struggle
against sleep.
He fell asleep.
Then you heard how Judas, thesame night, kissed Jesus and
(07:46):
betrayed him to his tormentors.
They took him bound to the highpriest and beat him, while
Peter exhausted, worn out withmisery and alarm, hardly awake,
you know, feeling that somethingawful was just about to happen
on earth, followed behind.
He loved Jesus passionately,intensely, and now he saw him
(08:06):
from afar how he was beaten.
Lucaria left the spoons andfixed in an immovable stare upon
the student.
They came to the high priests.
He went on.
They began to question Jesus.
In the meantime, the laborersmade a fire in the yard, as it
(08:31):
was cold, and warmed themselves.
Peter too stood with them.
It was cold and warmedthemselves.
Peter too stood with them nearthe fire and warmed himself, as
I am doing.
A woman seeing him said he waswith Jesus too.
That is as much as to say thathe too should have been taken to
be questioned.
And all the laborers werestanding near the fire must have
looked sourly and suspiciouslyat him, because he was confused
(08:54):
and said I don't know him.
A little while after, again,someone recognized him as one of
Jesus' disciples and said Thouart too one of them.
But he denied it.
And for the third time someoneturned to him and said why did I
(09:14):
not see thee with him in thegarden today?
For the third time he denied it.
And immediately after that timethe cock crowed and Peter,
looking from afar off at Jesus,remembered the words he had said
unto him in the evening.
He remembered.
He came to himself, went out ofthe yard and wept bitterly,
(09:35):
bitterly.
In the gospel it is written hewent out and wept bitterly, I
imagine it.
The still still dark, darkgarden, and in the stillness
faintly audible, smothered,sobbing.
And in the stillness, faintlyaudible, smothered, sobbing, the
(10:00):
student sighed and sank intothought.
Still smiling, vasilisasuddenly gave a gulp, big tears
flowed freely down her cheeksand she screamed her face from
the fire with her sleeve, asthough ashamed of her tears, and
Luckerya stared immovably atthe student, flushed crimson and
(10:26):
her expression became strainedand heavy, like that of someone
enduring intense pain.
The laborers came back from theriver, and one of them, riding
a horse, was quite near and thelight from the fire quivered
upon them.
The student said good night tothe widows and went on, and
(10:54):
again the darkness was about himand his fingers began to be
numb.
A cruel wind was blowing,winter had really winter really
had come back, and it did notfeel as though Easter would be
the day after tomorrow.
The student was thinking aboutVasilisa, thinking about
(11:26):
Vasilisa.
Vasilisa, since she had shedtears.
All that had happened to Peterthe night before the crucifixion
must have some relation to her.
Dot, dot, dot.
He looked around.
The solitary light was stillgleaming in the darkness and no
figures could be seen near it.
Now the student thought againthat if Vasilisa had shed tears
and her daughter had beentroubled, it was evident that
(11:48):
what he had just been tellingthem about, which had happened
nineteen centuries ago, had arelation to the present, to both
women, to the desolate village,to himself, to all people.
The woman had wept, not becausehe could tell the story
touchingly, but because Peterwas near to her, because her
(12:09):
whole being was interested inwhat was passing in Peter's soul
, and joy suddenly stirred inhis soul and he even stopped for
a minute to take breath.
The past, he thought, is linkedwith the present by an unbroken
chain of events flowing one outof another.
(12:31):
It seemed to him that he hadjust seen both ends of that
chain, that when he touched oneend, the other quivered.
When he crossed the river bythe ferry boat and afterwards,
mounting the hill, looked at hisvillage and towards the west,
(12:53):
where the cold, crimson sunsetlay a narrow streak of light, he
thought that truth and beauty,which had guided human life
there in the garden and in theyard of the high priest, had
continued without interruptionto this day and had evidently
always been the chief thing inhuman life and in all earthly
(13:15):
life, and in all earthly life,indeed in the feeling of youth,
health, vigor.
He was only 22, and theinexpressible, sweet expectation
of happiness, of unknown,mysterious happiness, took
(13:36):
possession of him little bylittle, and life seemed to him
enchanting, marvelous and fullof lofty meaning.
Well, this has been the Studentby Anton Chekhov, check Hove.
(14:00):
Please like and leave afive-star rating and a review,
and share this wonderful storywith someone near.
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