The “Evil One” is an allusion to the devil, who is considered the personification of evil across many cultures and faiths. In Christianity, the name of “the Devil” is sometimes used synonymously with Satan, an angel banished to hell as punishment for rebelling against God. As the younger sister suggests, the devil is believed to tempt humans into sinning to forfeit their chances of going to heaven after death.
"it was tempting everywhere...."See in text(Part VIII)
The temptation that Pahom experiences “everywhere,” and that ultimately costs him his life, suggests an allusion to The Parable of the Rich Fool in the New Testament of the Bible (Luke 12:13-21). In the parable, Jesus cautions against the perils of “all kinds of greed,” explaining that “life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” He tells the story of a rich man whose land produced an “abundance of harvest,” but the man worried about how to store his crops. He resolves to tear down his barns in order to build larger ones, which will enable him to store all of his crops and rest easy for “many years.” However, God declares him a “fool” because his life will be “demanded” from him “this very night,” and therefore he cannot benefit from his riches. Jesus explains that the rich fool’s fate is “how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Pahom’s story, while not exactly parallel to that of the Parable of the Rich Fool, reflects similar morals: he is tempted by the devil, which immediately casts his actions in a negative light, and dies after greedily marking off his share of the Bashkirs’ land.
