A Happy Man
You get on the wrong train. A train accident. Anything can happen at anytime to put an end to your happiness. Or as an obscure playwright once wrote: Things happen quickly and with force and we are all too slow and too weak to do anything about it.
Poor bridegroom. Ivan Alexyevitch has landed in a Chekhov story where he will be a pawn to illustrate the fickleness of fate. Too bad. He seems to be having such a fine time. It truly is rare to see such unabashed happiness and we'd like to see it last.
So what do we do when we're in the same train or boat as Ivan Alexyevitch? Do we revel in our happiness and enjoy it while it lasts or do we wait for the other shoe to drop?
The story makes Ivan Alexyevitch look rather foolish for putting too much faith in happiness. But his ebullience is so damn contagious we become infected. We all need to find a few moments in life where we simply bask in happy feelings and embrace the world.
The bad and unhappiness will show up soon enough -- but as Rick tells Elsa in the classic Casablanca:"We'll always have Paris."
We need those moments of unrepentant bliss to couch us a bit from the incoming blows which fate sooner or later has in store for us.
So hurry Ivan Alexyevitch and get on that express train to Petersburg. Godspeed!
And for those who believe truth is stranger than fiction click on the attached link to check out this story of a very happy bridegroom indeed.
I loved this story for reasons below:
ReplyDelete1. Go with nature and be happy. Nature has designed certain happy parts of our lives. Enjoy those at those right times
2. Accidents happen, and happens rarely. When it happens, it's OK to worry and be anxious like Ivan does in this story.
If we continue to live in the moment, we will experience more joy than sorrow, for joy frequents us more than sorrow.
The happy man, Ivan, and his friend, Pyotr, are con men working a scam. They play the part of inadvertently running into each other on the train and act out their little play in front of the other passengers. When the passengers are conned into believing the hard luck story, they willingly give money. For the two con men it's just another day at the office.
ReplyDeleteI guess I was conned as well because I totally missed that!
DeleteBecause there isn't a hint of it in the story and it's not true.
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