The heartbreaking story of an allegedly dead wife, a cruel husband and an ardent lover is complemented by a certain buffoon... The buffoon, having refused to save his soul, which, as it seems to him, is perishing in an unrighteous craft, gives away the money sent to him, which can become for him a gateway to a righteous life, to ransom the unfortunate Magna from slavery, helping her reunite with her family. The legend itself in the mouth of the buffoon becomes a story about his own wicked and sinful fall, a story about the deepening of his soul. And this whole story fades into the background; the proud self-willed stylite Hermias, in pride thinking on the pillar about the futility of his efforts, and the carefree buffoon from Damascus, shown to the stylite as an example of goodness, written in the book of the living, come to the forefront. If Hermias grieves for the fate of his neighbors, idolizing himself, according to Leskov, “humiliated both the plan and purpose of creation and considered himself most perfect,” then Pamphalon, constantly reproaching himself for dissipation and sin, loves others so much that he is beaten with copper rods for it. <...> Pamphalon becomes the one who can, waving his clownish cap, destroy the “limit” of Hermias – the word “conceit” stained across the entire horizon with large Hebrew letters, like coal and soot.