The

The Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one classic short stories and tales.

This is your host, John Hagadorn.

I thought it might be appropriate as we celebrate Easter to give you an Anton Chekhov story titled

Easter Eve.

There is no real drama here, and it's not really an Easter story, but it is an excellent

example of what a great writer Anton Chekhov was.

He gives us an unknown narrator who has to take a ferry across a river to get to the

church, where Easter Eve is being observed, with great joy, by the way. There is a bunch of

symbolism here, beginning with the ferryman who has recently lost a friend in the church, and is

described by Chekhov almost as a mystic, reminded it to the mythological figure

Sharon, who ferries the souls of the dead across the river sticks. In addition to symbolism,

Chekhov's use of light and dark imagery will be evident to you as you can picture in your mind

the scene as witnessed from the fairy and even place yourself

as the narrator. It's a skillfully written short story and one to be remembered, not for its action

or any special twist, but for its rich imagery. Then now, Easter Eve by Anton Chekhov. I was standing on the bank of the river Goltva, waiting for

the ferry boat from the other side. At ordinary times, the Goltpha is a humble stream of

moderate size, silent and pensive, gently glimmering from behind thick reeds, but now a regular lake lay stretched out before me.

The waters of spring, running riot, had overflowed both banks and flooded both sides of the river for a long distance,

submerging vegetable gardens, hayfields, and marshes, so that it was no unusual thing to meet poplars and bushes sticking out above the surface of the water,

and looking in the darkness like grim, solitary crags. The weather seemed to me magnificent. It was dark,

yet I could see the trees, the water, and the people.

...