"The Student" () is a short story by Anton Chekhov first published on April 16, 1894, in the newspaper . It tells of a clerical student returning home on a cold Good Friday evening who stops at a fire and meets two widows. 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.
At four pages, "The Student" is one of Chekhov's shortest stories and was the one he identified as his favorite among his own works. Critics have disagreed about whether the protagonist's point of view at the end of the story coincides with Chekhov's perspective. Other critical interpretation has focused on the symmetrical structure of "The Student" as well as the significance of the language used both to tell the story of the Denial of Peter and to tell the story as a whole. "The Student" has been praised by critics for its compactness and delicacy.
Plot
On a Good Friday evening, Ivan Velikopolsky, a 22-year-old sacristan's son and clerical student, walks home and imagines that the bitter wind, cold, and darkness he experiences were also felt throughout history: by Rurik, Ivan the Terrible, and Peter the Great. Along his path, he meets Vasilisa and Lukerya, a mother and her daughter who have both been widowed. As he joins them around their fire, Ivan remarks that the warmth they feel must also have been felt by Saint Peter. Suddenly, he asks if the widows have been reading the Twelve Passion Gospels to which Vasilisa replies that they have.
Ivan begins to recount the story of the Denial of Peter, in which Jesus foretells to Saint Peter that he will thrice deny Him before the next crowing of the cock. Peter follows Jesus upon His arrest and joins some workers in the yard standing around a fire as He is questioned. Thrice the workers suspiciously ask Peter if he knows Jesus and thrice he denies his acquaintance. A cock crows and Peter, realizing what he has done, weeps.
Ivan ends his story deep in thought as Vasilisa begins to cry and Lukerya looks on in pain. 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. As he rides the ferry to his village, Ivan comes to believe that truth and beauty serve as the connectors of all human history and he is filled with joy and awe at life itself.
Publication
Dealing with a strong cough, Anton Chekhov wrote "The Student" while on a monthlong vacation to Yalta, a city he found to be "ever so boring". The story, which initially bore the title "In the Evening", was published in issue number 104 of the newspaper (The Russian News) on April 16, 1894, and, at just four pages long, was one of Chekhov's shortest stories. Later in 1894, "The Student" was republished in the collection Novellas and Stories (). 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. While editing the text, Chekhov extended rather than curtailed it, which was a rarity for the author.
Chekhov relayed to Ivan Bunin that "The Student" was his favorite among his own short stories. According to L. M. O'Toole, it was also the story "that [Chekhov] considered to be structurally most perfect" among his oeuvre. Chekhov referenced it as a counterexample when challenged that his works were overtly pessimistic, describing it to his brother Alexander as his "manifesto for optimism".
Chekhov included the story in the eighth volume of his collected works published by Adolf Marks in 1899–1901. "The Student" received an English translation by Constance Garnett in 1918 when it was published in the Tales of Chekhov series in the volume The Witch, and Other Stories.