Splendid People

"Oh dear! How glad I am that I have met you! Fate is kind to me, I am always meeting splendid people. Not a day passes but one makes acquaintance with somebody one would give one's soul for. There are ever so many more good people than bad in this world."

Can you believe these words were written by a Russian? Unfortunately, the character speaking them is ranting aimlessly, covering topic after topic like the potholes on our roads. He speaks at length on the subject of faith and how his family, his enthusiasms, his money, his youth, and his guilt are all the outgrowth of the faith he scattered like seed on good and bad soil. When a lunatic or fanatic speaks a word we trust it is disturbing. After all, we have discovered solace and support from his ignorant obsession! But, even in his obsession he utters some simple truths. He tells some true stories about us, revelations of the subliminal aspects of faith.

Those are the words of Grigory Petrovitch Liharev, one of Anton Chekov's helpless characters. Like many Russian writers he frequently speaks of the church and its people, morality, and human habit. Russian authors like Chekov and Tolstoy leave the desperate truth of human suffering hang in the atmospheres of their stories, surrounding the softly glimmering intimations of faith that magnify the human soul. The murky and broken world they describe accurately renders the life of faith in the shadows of absurdity and frailty.

I am currently reading Chekov's short stories and I recommend them and The Forged Coupon by Tolstoy. These reveal the simple and sometimes tragic truths that exist in a confusing and complex landscape of human striving. What splendid people.