A sect, of which he is to be the head, is in process of formation, when, one day, he finds that he is on the wrong track. He thinks he has committed a mortal sin. Pride has taken possession of him; it is the Devil and not God who now directs his moves. Conscious of his error, he returns to orthodoxy, and, in the hopes of expiating his wrong-doing, he humiliates himself everywhere and on every occasion. But his cousin Jacob, having become infected with his earlier ideas, practises them with the fanatic ardor of a neophyte. With his sister and several other religious people, he locks himself into his house to pray; he sings vespers and matins. In the meanwhile Matvey decides that he must read Jacob a sermon. "Be reasonable," he tells him repeatedly, "repent, cousin. You will lose, because you are the prey of the demon. Repent." Instead of repenting, Jacob and his sister vow an implacable hatred against Matvey; so extreme is their feeling, that one day, at the end of an altercation, Jacob, blinded by rage, kills his cousin. He is judged and condemned. He is sent to the island of Sakhaline. There, he languishes, suffers, and despairs. But, little by little, his mind grows peaceful, and he has consoling visions. In prison he is surrounded by pariahs and criminals, and the sight of all this human suffering turns him again towards God, towards the religion of Love, the religion of pity for mankind. And now he wants to return to the country to tell of the miracle that has taken place in him, and to save souls from ill and ignorance. In "The Ravine" evil and injustice triumph at times with revolting cynicism. Evil is in everything and everywhere: "in the great manufacturers who drive along the streets of the village, crushing men and beasts; in the bailiff and the recorder, who are such bad characters that their very faces betray their knavery;" and finally, in the central figure of the story, Axinia, the wife of Stepan, the youngest son of Tzibukine, a usurer and monopolist.