24.11.06
Why I Am A Christian (6): The Meaning of Life
John 17:3
I slipped up last week. After making a mental note to put my reading of the Russian author Anton Chekhov’s Short Stories to one side, I picked them up again and read one. It was called “Typhus” and was the story of a soldier coming home to Moscow after serving in the army in Siberia. It begins on a train, with the soldier in a bad mood at a fellow passenger. Before long, the soldier starts to feel sick and run a temperature. When he gets home to Moscow, he goes straight to bed. After 2 weeks fevered hallucinations, he wakes up to a beautiful bright morning. He feels great. He’s managed to survive a dose of spotted typhus, a great killer disease of the day. Just when the story looks as if it is going to conclude on an uncharacteristically Un-Chekhov high point, the downer hits – this man’s younger sister nursed him back to health – a girl with all the promise and beauty of a life ahead of her – but during the her brother’s illness, she caught spotted typhus from him and quickly died. The last line of the story reads, “And joy gave way to the boredom of everyday life and the feeling of his irrevocable loss.” Read the rest of this entry »