Forgiveness makes ones heart light

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The protagonist of Leo Tolstoy's short story " God Sees The Truth, But

Waits " is a carefree young man named Ivan Dmitrich Aksionov. The fact

that he is, at the beginning of the story, so carefree should serve

as fair warning that he will not be this way long. We are further

warned of storm clouds on the horizon of Aksionov's life when his

wife -- also young, also beautiful, but more aware of life's

uncertainties -- tells him she has had a bad dream about him, and

asks him not to go to the Nizhny Fair, where he plans to sell his

wares. He laughs at her and goes anyway. But we know, from these

first seven paragraphs of Tolstoy's little tale, that things will not

go well with Aksionov from that moment on.

 

Disaster doesn't surface immediately. Halfway to the fair, Aksionov

stops at an inn for the night and winds up sharing a cup of tea with

another merchant whom he knows slightly. The two merchants go to bed

in adjoining rooms. In the morning Aksionov gets up, pays his bill,

and gets back on the road. But twenty-five miles later he is

overtaken by soldiers, who question him about his activities the

previous night.

 

Aksionov finally asks him why they are treating him as if he's

committed a crime, and he is informed that the merchant with whom he

spent the previous evening has been found murdered and his goods

plundered. When the soldiers search Aksionov's bags, they find a

bloody knife.

 

Predictably, Aksionov is arrested, tried, and convicted of murder.

His wife is able to see him one time before he is exiled to Siberia;

after rousing herself from a dead faint at the sight of him in

shackles and chains, she asks him whatever possessed him to murder

the stranger on the way to the fair. His own wife doesn't believe he

is innocent.

 

In Siberia, Aksionov is such a model prisoner that the other convicts

call him " The Saint, " and come to him with their problems and

disputes. His life is hard but bearable until a new prisoner, Makar

Semyonich, comes into the camp twenty-six years later. Aksionov

learns that the new man comes from the same home town as Aksionov

himself. Makar Semyonich knows Aksionov's sons well; they are rich

and successful merchants, even though it is said their father is a

convict in Siberia. That is the good news. The bad news is that Makar

Semyonich reveals himself to be none other than the true perpetrator

of the crime for which Aksionov is now serving a life sentence.

 

Aksionov is now torn by conflict. Here is the man responsible for

Aksionov's twenty-six years of misery! Yet what good would come from

revealing him to be the murderer now? The conflict is made even more

acute when Makar Semyonich attempts to tunnel out of prison and his

tunnel is discovered. The prisoners are assembled and asked to reveal

who had dug the hole. This is the perfect opportunity for Aksionov to

have his revenge on Makar Semyonich - but he cannot do it. Again,

what would be gained? The damage to Aksionov's life has already been

done, and no good can come of making someone else's life worse.

 

In private that evening, Makar Semyonich comes to Aksionov and begs

his forgiveness. " When they flogged me with the knout it was not so

hard to bear as it is to see you now...yet you had pity on me, and

did not tell. For Christ's sake forgive me, wretch that I am! " But

Aksionov says that forgiveness is not his to give, but God's,

and " God will forgive you....Maybe I am a hundred times worse than

you. "

 

Here is an odd remark. Throughout this story, Aksionov has never been

depicted as anything but pure of heart. At the beginning of the

story, he was carefree and naïve; at the end, he is anything but

naïve, but he has risen above the pettiness of human concerns to true

charity. How could he be " worse " than this murderer? But as Aksionov

tells Makar Semyonich that God will forgive him, " his heart grew

light, and his longing for home left him. " Tolstoy seems to be saying

that what makes us sinners is our attachments to material things,

including our homes, businesses, and families. Even if these things

do not actually cause us to sin, the attachment itself makes the risk

of sin immanent, and ties us to earth. Only when we give up those

things can we truly become free. In the very next sentence Aksionov

dies, reunited with his God for whom no material ties are real.