The
general impression I had on this piece of short story was that it was complex. There had been a lot of biblical
references that I had to be familiar with beforehand to understand the story. After reading it once, the story
seemed to be very interesting, and the reason was that there was nothing I can
understand from what happened in the story. (I had things to figure out on my
own!) But when I read it for the second time with full appreciation of the
little details, I began to create my own connections to the story as a whole. The
main question that had to be answered was why did Vasilisa (The mother of the
two widows) started crying after hearing the story about the Crucifixion
delivered by the student.
The story
starts with the description of the weather in the forest. The forest was depicted quite
starkly. Extreme coldness, agonizing wind, loneliness, and remoteness of the
forest set the whole story on a gloom from the beginning. Then, it goes on more
gloomily as the story talks about poverty and hunger, and how it had always
existed since a thousand years ago and it will continue to exist. Then, the
student tells the story about the betrayal of Peter and the Crucifixion. The story,
overall, sets in a very negative and pessimistic air. However, unexpectedly,
its ending is somewhat positive and hopeful. Far different from how the two
widows reacted to the story, the student rather feels happy on his way to somewhere
else after leaving the house. Such ambiguity also presents a bit of
mind-boggling experience to the reader.
The story makes its consistent effort to
draw connection between past and present. The most salient one reads, “since
she had shed tears all that had happened to Peter the night before the
Crucifixion must have some relation to her….” From here I could conjecture that
she is feeling the same sort of guilt as Peter felt. Soon after the student
visits the house, the student notices that the two women have just had supper
on the Good Friday. While, the most faithful observes an absolute Fasting (an
act of abstinence from food), the two women didn't observe what is expected for
them as Christians. The student also asks the two widows, with skepticism, whether they had been at the
reading of the Twelve Gospels with skepticism.
Then, the story of betrayal of Peter and the Crucifixion comes in. Vacilisa’s
tears eventually imply that the women are not so faithful Christians who feel
guilt as Peter did.
There are much more parallels in the
story. Another notable one reads, “At just such a fire the Apostle Peter warmed
himself,” said the student, stretching out his hands to the fire, “so it must
have been cold then, too…” Poverty and hunger exists just as it did a thousand
years ago, and it is obvious that the family suffers from poverty. The
disobedient acts of Peter and the two women toward Jesus are in common in that
they did on behalf of themselves. Peter denied his acquaintance with Jesus to
save himself from the mad crowd who were very willing to kill him if otherwise.
To the women, they were too hungry to pursue the observance of religious
fasting.
