Gerasim is the pantry servant in the Golovin household, a young muzhik, clean, fresh, and always cheerful, and he matters because he is the only one who does not lie to Ivan Ilyich about death and the only one in whose company Ivan Ilyich feels well.
At the wake, his is the only frank remark: when Pyotr Ivanovich asks him, just to say something, whether he feels sorry, he answers that it is God's will and that everyone ends up there. In the third month of the illness he is the one who carries the master's chamber pot. One day Ivan Ilyich apologizes to him for the task, and Gerasim smiles and asks why he would not make an effort, since the master is ill. At Ivan Ilyich's request he puts the master's legs on a chair and holds them up, and the pain almost disappears. Later he spends the nights with the legs on his shoulders and, when told to rest, says: we shall all die, why should I not make an effort?
The narrator explains the phrase: he does not tire, because he does the work for a man who is dying and hopes that when his turn comes someone will do the same. The health and joy of others offend the sick man; Gerasim's calm him, because they do not come with pretense. And it is before his sleepy, kindly face that, in chapter XI, the suspicion is born that the whole of life has been not that.
As for his kindness, the text supports two readings: simple Christian charity, from one who accepts death as God's will, or reciprocity, from one who knows he will be cared for if he cares. Both fit the same man.