Vassily, who was sitting on the floor at Chouev’s side, and was listening to his reading the Gospel, nodded his handsome head in approval. “True,” he said in a resolute tone. “Go, you cursed villains, into everlasting punishment, since you did not give food to the hungry, but swallowed it all yourself. Serves them right! I have read the holy Nikodim’s writings,” he added, showing off his erudition.
“And will they never be pardoned?” asked Stepan, who had listened silently, with his hairy head bent low down.
“Wait a moment, and be silent,” said Chouev to Vassily, who went on talking about the rich who had not given meat to the stranger, nor visited him in the prison.
“Wait, I say!” said Chouev, again turning over the leaves of the Gospel. Having found what he was looking for, Chouev smoothed the page with his large and strong hand, which had become exceedingly white in prison:
“And there were also two other malefactors, led with Him”—it means with Christ—“to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left. Then said Jesus—‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’ And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided Him, saying—‘He saved others; let Him save Himself if He be Christ, the chosen of God.’ And the soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him, and offering Him vinegar, and saying, ‘If Thou be the King of the Jews save Thyself.’ And a superscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying, ‘If thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.’ But the other answering rebuked Him, saying, ‘Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss.’ And he said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.’ And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.’ ”
Stepan did not say anything, and was sitting in thought, as if he were listening.
Now he knew what the true faith was. Those only will be saved who have given food and drink to the poor and visited the prisoners; those who have not done it, go to hell. And yet the malefactor had repented on the cross, and went nevertheless to paradise. This did not strike him as being inconsistent. Quite the contrary. The one confirmed the other: the fact that the merciful will go to Heaven, and the unmerciful to hell, meant that everybody ought to be merciful, and the malefactor having been forgiven by Christ meant that Christ was merciful. This was all new to Stepan, and he wondered why it had been hidden from him so long.
From that day onward he spent all his free time with Chouev, asking him questions and listening to him. He saw but a single truth at the bottom of the teaching of Christ as revealed to him by Chouev: that all men are brethren, and that they ought to love and pity one another in order that all might be happy. And when he listened to Chouev, everything that was consistent with this fundamental truth came to him like a thing he had known before and only forgotten since, while whatever he heard that seemed to contradict it, he would take no notice of, as he thought that he simply had not understood the real meaning. And from that time Stepan was a different man.
IV
Stepan had been very submissive and meek ever since he came to the prison, but now he made the prison authorities and all his fellow-prisoners wonder at the change in him. Without being ordered, and out of his proper turn he would do all the very hardest work in prison, and the dirtiest too. But in spite of his humility, the other prisoners stood in awe of him, and were afraid of him, as they knew he was a resolute man, possessed of great physical strength. Their respect for him increased after the incident of the two tramps who fell upon him; he wrenched himself loose from them and broke the arm of one of them in the fight. These tramps had gambled with a young prisoner of some means and deprived him of all his money. Stepan took his part, and deprived the tramps of their winnings. The tramps poured their abuse on him; but when they attacked him, he got the better of them. When the Governor asked how the fight had come about, the tramps declared that it was Stepan who had begun it. Stepan did not try to exculpate himself, and bore patiently his sentence which was three days in the punishment-cell, and after that solitary confinement.
In his solitary cell he suffered because he could no longer listen to Chouev and his Gospel. He was also afraid that the former visions of her and of the black devils would reappear to torment him. But the visions were gone for good. His soul was full of new and happy ideas. He felt glad to be alone if
