The Reflections of a Sissy

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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"

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Transcript

Introduction to Ron Reads Boring Books

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello , are you tired ? You will be , because this is Ron Reads Boring Books and today , for your displeasure , we're reading the Student by Anton Chekhov . Let's begin At first . The weather was fine and still . The thrushes were calling , and in the swamps close by , something alive droned pitifully , with a sound like blowing into an empty bottle . With a sound like blowing into an empty bottle , a snipe flew by and the shot aimed at it rang out with a gay resounding note in the spring air . But when it began to get dark in the forest , a cold , penetrating wind blew inappropriately from the east and everything sank into silence . Needles of ice stretched across the pools and it felt cheerless , remote and lonely . In the forest there was a whiff of winter .

The Student's Cold Journey Home

Speaker 1 1:22

Ivan Velikopolsky , the son of a sacristan and a student of the clerical academy , returning home from shooting , kept walking on the path by the waterlogged meadows . His fingers were numb and his face was burning with the wind . It seemed to him that the cold that had suddenly come on had destroyed the order and harmony of things , that nature itself fell ill at ease , and that was why the evening darkness was falling more rapidly than usual . All around it was deserted and particularly gloomy . The only light was one gleaming in the window's gardens near the river , the village over three miles away , and everything in the distance all around was plunged in the cold evening mist . The student remembered that as he had left the house , his mother was sitting barefoot on the floor in the entryway cleaning the samovar while his father lay on the stove coughing . As it was Good Friday , nothing had been cooked and the student was terribly hungry and now , shrinking from the cold , he thought that just such a wind had blown in the days of Rurik and in the time of Ivan the Terrible and Peter , and in their time there had been just the same desperate poverty and hunger , the same thatched roofs with holes in them , ignorance , misery . The same desolation around the same darkness , the same feeling of oppression . Desolation around the same darkness , the same feeling of oppression . All these had existed , did exist and would exist , and the lapse of a thousand years would make life no better . And he did not want to go home .

Encounter with Widows at Campfire

Speaker 1 3:41

The gardens were called the widows because they were kept by two widows , mother and daughter .

Speaker 1 3:50

A campfire was burning brightly , with a crackling sound throwing out light far around on the plowed earth . The widow Vasilisa , a tall , fat old woman in a man's coat was standing by and looking thoughtfully into the fire . Her daughter Lucaria , a little pockmarked woman with a stupid-looking face , was sitting on the ground washing a cauldron in spoons . Apparently they had just had supper . There was a sound of men's voices . It was the laborers watering their 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 . I did not know you . God bless you . She said You'll be rich , they talked . Vasilisa , a woman of experience who had been in service with the gentry , first as a wet nurse , afterwards as a children's nurse , expressed herself with refinement and a soft , sedate smile , never left her face . Her daughter , lucuria , a village peasant woman who had been beaten by her husband , simply screwed up her eyes at the student and said nothing . She had a strange expression like that of a deaf mute At just such a fire .

Speaker 1 5:50

The Apostle Peter warmed himself , said the student , stretching out his hands to the fire . So it must have been cold then too . Ah , what a terrible night it must have been , granny , an utterly dismal , long night . He looked around at the darkness , shook his head abruptly and asked no doubt you have heard the reading of the twelve apostles . Yes , I have answered , Vasilisa . If you remember , at the

Retelling Peter's Denial of Jesus

Speaker 1 6:26

last supper , Peter said to Jesus I am ready to go with thee into darkness and unto death . And our Lord answered him . Thus I say unto thee , peter , before the cock croweth thou wilt have denied me thrice .

Speaker 1 6:47

After the supper , jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed , and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint , his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep . He fell asleep . Then you heard how Judas , the same night , kissed Jesus and betrayed him to his tormentors . Wait a minute , I was supposed to be reading that with the student's voice , so let's start over . After the supper , jesus went through the agony of death in the garden and prayed , and poor Peter was weary in spirit and faint , his eyelids were heavy and he could not struggle against sleep . He fell asleep . Then you heard how Judas , the same night , kissed Jesus and betrayed him to his tormentors . They took him bound to the high priest and beat him , while Peter exhausted , worn out with misery and alarm , hardly awake , you know , feeling that something awful was just about to happen on earth , followed behind . He loved Jesus passionately , intensely , and now he saw him from afar how he was beaten .

Speaker 1 8:19

Lucaria left the spoons and fixed 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 laborers made a fire in the yard , as it was cold , and warmed themselves . Peter too stood with them . It was cold and warmed themselves . Peter too stood with them near the fire and warmed himself , as I am doing . A woman seeing him said he was with Jesus too . That is as much as to say that he too should have been taken to be questioned . And all the laborers were standing near the fire must have looked sourly and suspiciously at him , because he was confused and said I don't know him .

Speaker 1 8:59

A little while after , again , someone recognized him as one of Jesus' disciples and said Thou art too one of them . But he denied it . And for the third time someone turned to him and said why did I not see thee with him in the garden today ? For the third time he denied it . And immediately after that time the 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 of the yard and wept bitterly , bitterly . In the gospel it is written he went out and wept bitterly , I imagine it .

Speaker 1 9:43

The still still dark , dark garden , and in the stillness faintly audible , smothered , sobbing . And in the stillness , faintly audible , smothered , sobbing , the student sighed and sank into thought . Still smiling , vasilisa suddenly gave a gulp , big tears flowed freely down her cheeks and she screamed her face from the fire with her sleeve , as though ashamed of her tears , and Luckerya stared immovably at the student , flushed crimson and her expression became strained and heavy , like that of someone enduring intense pain . The laborers came back from the river , and one of them , riding a horse , was quite near and the light from the fire quivered upon them . The student said good night to the widows and went on , and again the darkness was about him and his fingers began to be numb . A cruel

Unexpected Emotional Response

Speaker 1 11:01

wind was blowing , winter had really winter really had come back , and it did not feel as though Easter would be the day after tomorrow .

Speaker 1 11:13

The student was thinking about Vasilisa , thinking about Vasilisa . Vasilisa , since she had shed tears . All that had happened to Peter the night before the crucifixion must have some relation to her . Dot , dot , dot . He looked around . The solitary light was still gleaming in the darkness and no figures could be seen near it .

Speaker 1 11:40

Now the student thought again that if Vasilisa had shed tears and her daughter had been troubled , it was evident that what he had just been telling them about , which had happened nineteen centuries ago , had a relation to the present , to both women , to the desolate village , to himself , to all people .

Speaker 1 12:02

The woman had wept , not because he could tell the story touchingly , but because Peter was near to her , because her whole being was interested in what was passing in Peter's soul , and joy suddenly stirred in his soul and he even stopped for a minute to take breath .

Revelation of Truth and Beauty

Speaker 1 12:22

The past , he thought , is linked with the present by an unbroken chain of events flowing one out of another . It seemed to him that he had just seen both ends of that chain , that when he touched one end , the other quivered . When he crossed the river by the ferry boat and afterwards , mounting the hill , looked at his village and towards the west , where the cold , crimson sunset lay a narrow streak of light , he thought that truth and beauty , which had guided human life there in the garden and in the yard of the high priest , had continued without interruption to this day and had evidently always been the chief thing in human life and in all earthly life , and in all earthly life , indeed in the feeling of youth , health , vigor . He was only 22 , and the inexpressible , sweet expectation of happiness , of unknown , mysterious happiness , took possession of him little by little , and life seemed to him enchanting , marvelous and full of lofty meaning . Well , this has been the Student by Anton Chekhov , check Hove . Please like and leave a five-star rating and a review , and share this wonderful story with someone near .