This is a lovely, unironic portrait of religious belief.
A clerical student, walking home through the woods, comes upon a mother and daughter having dinner. As he warms himself at their fire, he is reminded of the way the apostle Peter similarly warmed himself on the evening of the last supper.
The student recalls the story for his hosts, and they are all moved deeply by it. The student then resumes walking, feeling that somehow he has touched eternity, and he is overjoyed.
Beautiful!
READ THIS? READ THAT!
While Chekhov did not seem to be a particularly observant Christian, and he often seemed almost agnostic in considering various religions, his letters are regularly punctuated with expressions of belief: “God’s world is good,” he wrote in 1890. Visiting Nice the next year during holy week, he wrote home about the different gambling games being played on the Riviera, but also mentioned visiting a Russian church twice. And later that week, he notes that it is the first time he had ever been away from home for that most important holiday. (The letter begins with a happy exclamation: “Christ is risen!”)
As a companion to “The Student,” you might read just about any story in volume seven of Constance Garnett’s translations, as every story in the volume touches on religious life, but the one that “The Student” most brings to mind is “Easter Eve,” a meditative sketch of life in a monastery.
A Chekhov Circus 