The article focuses on studying the motives of the first canto of Inferno in A. P. Chekhov’s story Student. Possible allusions to the first canto are evident in Chekhov’s choice of the time and place of where the character experiences his spiritual drama, in the semantics and function of the locuses, and key motives highlighting the character’s path. The author assumes that Dante’s ideals might have given rise to Chekhov’s idea of the unity of life in the world.