The Black Monk

The Black Monk, short story by Anton Chekhov, first published in Russian as “Chorny monakh” in 1894. “The Black Monk,” Chekhov’s final philosophical short story, concerns Kovrin, a mediocre scientist who has grandiose hallucinations in which a black-robed monk convinces him that he possesses superhuman abilities and is destined to lead humanity to everlasting life and eternal truth. The spell is broken when the black monk fails to define what he means by “eternal truth”...