The doctor, the blind worker and the faithful peasant

There were three prisoners in a neighbouring cell. None of them knew Morse code, and attempts to communicate with them were unsuccessful. I heard them report every morning and evening: “Sir, the room…, with three prisoners, is ready to report.”

Almost a year passed, and one day the militiaman was called by a knock on the door: one of them had died. The stretcher-bearers removed the body, and silence fell. The mystery was clarified when the other two were moved to separate cells. They were a doctor, a worker, and a farmer.

The doctor, small in stature, endured the deprivation of food but grew irritable and silent. The labourer was sick, extremely weak, and blind from untreated diabetes. The farmer, also weak, was quiet and prayed throughout the day. He knew the altar of Our Lady and many psalms by heart. He had been wounded at the Răzăr front and had stayed at home. Later, because he opposed collectivization, he was tried alongside the legionaries and sent to Aiud. He cared for the labourer and spoke to him; the doctor, however, remained aloof, watching with an air of superiority.

The worker’s condition worsened until he could no longer move. The farmer fed him and tended to his needs. He reported the situation to the militiaman, asking that the worker be sent to a hospital—but the militiaman slammed the door in his face. After a few days, however, the food began to improve. Small pieces of meat, entrails, and scraps appeared. It was unusual, and the hope that death might at least be postponed revived the dying man’s spirit. The doctor noticed that the farmer, before giving the labourer his portion, would fish meat out of his own canteen, place it in the blind man’s, and then urge him to eat:

• Take this, brother, for God and the Mother of God have remembered us and have sweetened our suffering…

As the days passed, the labourer grew weaker and eventually lost consciousness. The doctor reproached the farmer:

• What are you doing, sir? Instead of eating your share, you are giving him the best part while he is dying.

• Yes, Doctor, I see that he’s dying too, but I do not want him to cross over feeling unloved by anyone here…

He knelt at the dying man’s head and prayed. In that moment, something stirred in the doctor’s soul. He turned to the wall and began to weep. The farmer tried to calm him:

• Doctor, calm down! Perhaps this is why God has placed us here: to discover our souls. You, as a doctor, have witnessed countless deaths; I, at the front, too. But neither of us had understood that people do not die—they simply move on.

After the dead man was removed, the doctor remained silent for days. Eventually, he asked the farmer to teach him the altar and the psalms he knew, and he spent all his time in prayer. In turn, the doctor imparted to the peasant the true understanding of humanity. When they were finally separated, the doctor recounted the story to others, making it an act of penance before all.

(Virgil Maxim – Hymn for the Cross Carried. Abecedar duhovnicesc pour un frère de cross, 2nd edition, Antim Publishing House – 2002, pp. 385-386)