The old man
The old man appears only twice in the novel, but each encounter leaves a profound impression on Nekhludoff and on the reader. He is a wanderer without name, home, or passport—a man who has stripped himself of every social identity and lives entirely by his own inner law. His first appearance comes on a river ferry, where he stands apart from the other passengers who cross themselves at the sound of a monastery bell. When Nekhludoff's driver challenges him for not praying, the old man responds with a cascade of theological and political defiance that reveals a coherent, radical worldview forged over twenty-three years of persecution.
Identity and Beliefs
The old man describes himself as having "no kind of faith" because he believes no one but himself. He rejects all established religions—Old Believers, New Believers, Molokans, Skoptzy, and the rest—as so many blind puppies crawling in different directions. The spirit, he insists, is one and the same in every person; if each man believed himself, all would be united. He has given up his name, his place, his country, everything: "I am just myself." When asked his name, he answers simply "Man." He refuses to count his years because he "always was" and "always shall be." His parents, he says, are God and Mother Earth. He recognizes the Tsar only as "his own Tsar" while declaring himself his own Tsar as well. This is not the casual blasphemy of a drunkard but the settled creed of a man who has spent twenty-three years being seized, taken before courts and priests, and even confined to a madhouse for his beliefs. He accepts no money, only bread, and moves wherever God leads him, working when he can find work and begging when he cannot.
The Ferry Encounter
The ferry scene is charged with dramatic tension. The old man stands out among the crowd of passengers who obediently cross themselves at the sound of the monastery bell. When the driver mocks him as "unbaptized," the old man retorts with a challenge: "And you just show me where he is, that god." The driver, flustered, falls back on the conventional answer—"in heaven"—but the old man presses his advantage, quoting Scripture: "No one has ever seen God at any time." He then delivers his central teaching: that different faiths exist only because men believe others instead of believing themselves. He himself once believed others and "lost himself as in a swamp" before finding his way out. Now he is free, and no persecution can touch him. Nekhludoff, struck by the old man's words, offers him money, but the old man refuses it, accepting only bread. When Nekhludoff apologizes, the old man replies with serene invulnerability: "There is nothing to excuse, you have not offended me. And it is not possible to offend me."
The Prison Confrontation
The second encounter takes place in a prison cell, where the old man has been sent by the police for lacking a passport. He sits on the floor, barefoot, wearing only a torn, dirty shirt, his emaciated body visible through the holes. When the inspector orders him to stand, he refuses, smiling contemptuously and declaring that the inspector bears "the seal" of Antichrist on his forehead. He recognizes Nekhludoff from the ferry and immediately classifies him as part of "Antichrist's army." When Nekhludoff explains that he is a visitor, the old man scoffs: "What, hast thou come to see how Antichrist tortures men?" He denounces the prison as a cage where men who should eat bread in the sweat of their brow are locked up with no work and fed like swine so that they may turn into beasts. When the Englishman asks through Nekhludoff how thieves and murderers should be treated, the old man answers that the authorities should first "take the seal of Antichrist off" themselves; then there would be no thieves or murderers. His final words to Nekhludoff are a dismissal: "Every man be his own chief, then the chiefs will not be wanted. Go, go!"
Thematic Significance
The old man functions as a radical foil to every other character in the novel. Where Nekhludoff struggles toward moral awakening through guilt, confession, and gradual reform, the old man has already achieved a state of complete spiritual autonomy. Where the legal system operates through endless hierarchies of judges, prosecutors, and inspectors, the old man simply refuses to recognize any authority above his own conscience. Where the church offers institutional salvation through sacraments and hierarchy, the old man preaches a direct, unmediated relationship with the divine that requires no priests, no temples, and no rituals. His rejection of all names, all documents, all social identities makes him literally ungovernable—the authorities can imprison him but cannot make him obey. The prison inspector, faced with his defiance, can only call him "crazy," and the Englishman dismisses him with the same label. But Nekhludoff, who has just witnessed Kryltzoff's death and the systematic degradation of hundreds of prisoners, recognizes in the old man's words a truth that the entire apparatus of state power is organized to suppress: that men who try to punish other men while remaining themselves unrepentant are merely perpetuating evil. The old man's final appearance, sitting on the prison floor in his rags, his eyes glittering with wrath and his voice ringing with prophetic certainty, provides the novel's most uncompromising indictment of the penal system and its most radical vision of human freedom.
