A Literary Research on

Leo Tolstoys

God Sees the Truth, but Waits

Jacob L. Mata

INTRODUCTION:

I.

The Author

Figure 1 Russian author, Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828, in Tula Province, Russia. He wrote his first great
novel, War and Peace in the 1860s. Tolstoy worked on the second of his greatest recognized novels, Anna
Karenina in 1873. He persistently wrote fiction all through the 1880s and 1890s. The Death of Ivan Ilyich
was one of his last successful works. Tolstoy died in Astapovo, Russia, November 20 th of 1910. (A+E
Networks, 2013)

"Iputmentodeathinwar;Ifoughtduelstoslayothers.Ilostatcards,wastedthesubstancewrungfromthe
sweatofpeasants,punishedthelattercruelly,riotedwithloosewomen,anddeceivedmen.Lying,robbery,
adulteryofallkinds,drunkenness,violence,andmurder,allwerecommittedbyme,notonecrimeomitted,
andyetIwasnotthelessconsideredbymyequalstobeacomparativelymoralman.Suchwasmylifeforten
years."
LeoTolstoy

Lev Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born on September 9, 1828 at Yasnaya Polyana (meaning
Clear Glade), his family's estate, in the Tula Province of Russia.

Figure 2 Yasnaya Polyana (Tolstoy estates)

He was the youngest of four boys. In 1830, when Tolstoy's mother, Countess Maria
Volkonsky died after giving birth to his sister Mariya in 1830, his father's cousin took over caring for the
children. When their father, Count Nikolay Ilyich Tolstoy, died in 1837, an aunt was prearranged to be
their custodian. When the aunt died, Leo and his siblings were transferred to another aunt, in Kazan,
Russia. Although he, at an early age, had seen many losses, these childhood experiences became the
ideals of his works later. (A+E Networks, 2013)

Figure 3 University of Kazan

For his primary education, he underwent teaching sessions with French and German tutors and in
1843, enrolled in an Oriental Languages program at the University of Kazan. There, Leo showed
remarkable potential in his entry examinations on Catechism, Algebra, Russian Philology and English,
and excellent marks "5" on French and Turkish-Tatar, he failed History and Geography but was still
admitted to the university. He however did not continue his streak of excellence and after a while his low
grades forced him to transfer to an easier law program. In 1847, even without a degree, Tolstoy left the
University of Kazan. (Museum of History of Kazan University, 2005)
He returned to Yasnaya Polyana, where he decided to become a farmer. He proposed himself to
be a leader to the serfs, or peasants, in their work, but he wasnt present most of the time because of social
visits to Tula and Moscow. After all the failures and misadventures, he did, however, accomplish
something in writing and keeping a journal a start of a lasting practice that would motivate much of his
works. (A+E Networks, 2013)

While working on the farm, his older brother, Nikolay, came while on military leave. Nikolay
persuaded Tolstoy to join the Army as a Junker, where Nikolay was stationed, South in the Caucasus
Mountains. Subsequent to his shift as a Junker, Tolstoy was reassigned to Sevastopol in Ukraine,
November of 1854, where he joined the battle in the Crimean War until August 1855. (A+E Networks,
2013)
He had so much time for himself during his job as a Junker. He used most of the quiet times of
the war in writing a journal which would become his first autobiographical story, Childhood and
submitted the draft to The Contemporary, a renowned journal of the time, in 1852. Tolstoy then wrote on
his everyday experience at the Army outpost in the Caucasus after finishing Childhood. Tolstoy still
continued writing while fighting in the Crimean War. All through that time, he wrote Boyhood (1854), a
follow-up to Childhood. However, he was not able to finish the story, entitled The Cossacks, until after he
resigned from the Army in 1862. (A+E Networks, 2013)
Crimean War ceased and Tolstoy resigned from the Army, he came back to Russia. Back home, he
found himself popular in St. Petersburgs literary circles. Tolstoy refused to affiliate himself with any
academic school. He made off to Paris in 1857 while announcing himself an anarchist. He wasted money
in gambling and was strained to return to Russia. He was able to publish Youth, the third of his
autobiographical trilogy following Childhood and Boyhood, in 1857. (A+E Networks, 2013)
Tolstoy created the first of a 12 issues of the journal Yasnaya Polyana, in Russia 1862 and at the
same year, marrying a daughter of a doctor named Sofya Andreyevna Bers. Tolstoy spent the better part
of the 1860s toiling over his first great novel, War and Peace with his wife and children living at Yasnaya
Polyana. The novel was first printed by the Russian Messenger in 1865, entitled The Year 1805. The novel
was completed in 1869. The novel exceptionally included three essays mocking the laws of history.
Tolstoy commends in War and Peace the idea that the quality and meaning of one's life is mainly
derived from his day-to-day activities. (A+E Networks, 2013)

In the late 1870's, Tolstoy went about a spiritual crisis that brought him to a rejection of his
profession as an author. Tolstoy left literature to build a school for the serfs living on his estate in the
early 1860's. (A+E Networks, 2013)

II.

Tolstoy and Russia During God Sees the Truth, but Waits (1872)

The Russian Empire was subjected under the rule of its emperor, Alexander II from March of 1855
through 1881 when he was assassinated by a hand thrown explosive that blasted the carriage that he was
riding. But along those years were significant turn of events for both the Russian Government, the Social
Classes especially the Serfs and the writer-slash-army Junker Leo Tolstoy. (Jahn, G. R., 2000)
In 1855 the Crimean War, on which Leo participated as a Junker as requested by his brother Nikolay,
ended as the new emperor Alexander II wore the crown of Russia. Tolstoy, declining any affiliation to
intellectual institutions decided to go to Paris and was not seen until he lost all his money in gambling and
decided to go home in 1857. He published Youth to support his living. (Jahn, G. R., 2000)
He worked for the rest of the years until it was 1862 when he started publishing issues of a journal
named after their family estate Yasnaya Polyana, on the same year, he married a daughter of a doctor
named Sofya Andreyevna Bers. They enjoyed the life of landowners as they reside the Tolstoy estates.
But on the year 1864, Alexander II created the Zemstva which established a local government system all
over Russia, diminishing the power of the Tolstoy as well as other noble families and the Anarchists like
Leo Tolstoy himself. This gave him and his wife a rough start especially when Leo was only making a
living from the farms and, if without the agri-business, from writing novels. (Gagno, G., 2009)
He concentrated the years of 1860s on writing his novel, War and Peace which paid off well because
it became a hit when it was published for the first time in the Russian Messenger in 1865. However, on
the same year, Alexander II passed his newly constructed legal reform on the social class system which
freed all serfs from the nobles and was later called the Emancipation of the Serfs and a reform on social
justice which was concerned in passing judiciary power to the local government, giving it the capability

to hold court hearings, provide judgements, and if necessary, give sanctions and punishments. (Gagno, G.,
2009)
One of the known verdicts of the local government jury was convicting to local jails and if proven
guilty of the charges, the convict is sent to Siberia to serve in the land-lock throughout the time of his
imprisonment. (Hundley, D. H.)

Figure 4 Barricade Perimeters of Russia-Siberia Prison

Figure 5 Prison Camp in Siberia

Due to its remoteness and severe weather conditions 'Russian Australia' was one huge
prison, escape from where was almost impossible and very dangerous not only because of
the chase, but because of the Siberian killing frosts, unimaginably long distances, bountyhunting natives, deep forests and wild animals. Another reason for establishing
punishment by exile was the desire of society to banish still cruel and barbarous criminal
code of XVII century according to which criminals had been punished by amputation of
their limbs, being bastinadoed, and being branded with hot iron. Exile was quick and easy
method of getting them out of the way. The punishments, however, didn't become more
humane. They just began to happen far away from where most of the people could see
them. Before making Siberia place of exile criminals died from being tortured in
Moscow; after they died from the hard, exhausting work, cold winters, and diseases in
Siberia. Although originally applied as a corporal punishment, exile can be viewed as a
means of population and developing the colony. Government needed people to work in
Siberian mines and to build roads, and penal servitude began to replace long prison terms,
while list of offences meriting exile steadily lengthened to include even vagrancy,
fortune-telling, wife-beating, debts, accidentally starting a fire or drunkenness
An excerpt from Siberian Prison System (2011), 123helpme.com:
http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=23579
To keep relations with the serfs of their estate, he quitted his writing profession after finishing War
and Peace to concentrate on building schools for the peasants. He wrote primers for the elementary
school he built and in connection with this project, Tolstoy wrote a large number of stories, sketches, and
articles to form the bulk of the practical matter in a course in the elements of literacy which he had
designed. Among these are two stories which he, in his tractate on aesthetics, What is Art, accepted from
the general repudiation of the fiction which he wrote prior to the crisis and conversion of the late 1870's.
These were "The Prisoner of the Caucasus" and "God Sees the Truth, But Waits" (1872). (Gagno, G.,
2009)

SUMMARY:

God Sees the Truth, but Waits (1872)

Leo N. Tolstoy

The story started when Ivan Demitrich Aksionov, the rich merchant from the town (now city) of
Vladimir, goes on a fair somewhere in Nizhny. His wife pleads him to just let the day pass and not go into
the fair because of a nightmare that his hair was gray when he turned home. Aksionov however,
disregards the warning and proceeds. On the way he saw a merchant whom he knew well, though his
name wasnt mentioned by Tolstoy. This merchant goes to the same fair Aksionovs going, so they
decided to join each other. They stayed in an inn at the night, but Aksionov woke the merchant up early so
that they may travel faster. However, the scene changes to him being alone, feeding the horses and
playing his guitar. Suddenly, the police officers came to inspect his things, telling him that the merchant
he was with died and suggesting he was the killer. They came to look for a knife, and they found one and
it was even bloodied. He was tried and he also tried to make appeals to the Tsar, but it was continuously
trashed down. He finally gave up and swore that only God knows the truth. He decided to accept his
sentence and was deported to the Russian penal colony at Siberia. For twenty-five years he lived there.
Until one day, a new inmate came in. His name was Makar Semyonich, who lived in the same town as
Aksionov. Makar then recognized Aksionov as the one of the richest guys in Vladimir. He however
eluded the murder case of Aksionov, making Aksionov think that Makar is the criminal. One day he
caught Makar digging a tunnel underneath the jail. He then confessed what he did: he killed the merchant
that Aksionov was with, and that Aksionov is suffering for the sin of Makar. Makar still warns Aksionov,
though, that once he tells the authorities of the tunnel he will die. Aksionov remained silent the next day
when he was interrogated. In the end, Makar confessed his sin of killing the merchant, and the authorities
granted Aksionov a full pardon posthumously though, as he was dead already.

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION:

"God Sees the Truth, But Waits" serves, in fact, as a perfect case in cover of the belief that
Tolstoy's rejection of the "artistic" and "literary" should be implicit, at least as his own tradition is
concerned, as encompassing only to the assessment of these qualities as self-justifying fictional values.
Considering the briefness of the story, the extent of the narrative seems grand. It includes the
totality of the life of Ivan Dmitrich Aksenov, a time of over twenty-six years from his early adulthood to
his passing away. The narrative seems biographical yet so little has happened as narrated.
A joyful and flourishing trader named Aksenov leaves home for a trading fair. On the first day of
his trip on the road, he shares a hotel room with a stranger. During the hours of darkness, a robber goes
into the room to rob and kill Aksenov's companion. Unconscious of what was happening, Aksenov leaves
early before daybreak and is stopped by the police on the second day of his trip to charge him with
murder. Even though innocent, he is tested and imprisoned and thus giving us the theme of the story;
convicting of the innocent.
He pays out twenty-six years in Siberia at tough toil. A new prisoner, Makar Semenov, then
appears at the jail, and Aksenov finds out that it was him who had killed the merchant, an offense for
which he had been captive. On the night Aksenov watches Makar burrowing a passageway. The warden
notices the passageway before it is finished. The prisoners are gathered for questioning, and the warden
asks Aksenov. Though he has hatred towards Makar, Aksenov declines to testify against him. Makar is so
stirred by Aksenov's defense of him that he approached him at night to ask for his mercy. Makar admits to
that he was the real killer giving Aksenov a full amnesty, but when it arrived he has already passed away.
The narrative relates the life story of a single individual to anothers life story. It is greatly
discriminating in the events, and the arrangement is tightly controlled. There are only two brief episodes
in Aksenov's life. The first part of the narrative is constantly situated to the events immediate the murder

of the merchant. The second part of the narrative tells of the events resulting the unintentional meeting of
the real killer and Aksenov. These events correspond to only a few weeks in the life of Aksenov.
An inspection of the general arrangement of the narrative material exposes that the essence of
each part of the story is devoted to a detailed account of a climactic event in the life of the protagonist.
Both of these accounts are preceded by a physical description of the protagonist and a brief portrait of the
manner of his life and of his emotional state prior to his involvement in the climactic events which follow.
Approximately equal periods of time in the life of the protagonist have elapsed prior to the occurrence of
each climactic event. As he is described in the first half of the story, Aksenov would seem to be still in his
young manhood, perhaps twenty-five to thirty years of age. At the beginning of the second half of the
story it is mentioned that Aksenov has spent twenty-six years at hard labour in Siberia.
Symmetry also governs the narration of the two climactic events themselves. Both narrations
begin with a conversation. In the first half of the story there is a conversation between Aksenov and his
wife prior to his departure on a journey. In the second half Aksenov converses with Makar following the
latter's arrival at the prison. After the initial conversation in each half of the story there follows a narrative
account of the protagonist's subsequent actions. In the first half Aksenov begins his journey, and during
the night of his first day on the road the man with whom he shares a room is murdered. In the second half,
again at night, Aksenov observes Makar's attempt to dig a tunnel through which to escape from the prison.
Consequent upon the actions which occur during the brief narrative interval, the protagonist is, in
both halves of the story, drawn into a dramatic confrontation with the authorities. In the first half Aksenov
is interrogated by the police inspector who apprehends him. In the second half the authorities discover the
partially completed tunnel. When the prisoners are assembled for interrogation, Aksenov is singled out
and questioned by the warden regarding his knowledge of it.
Both of the scenes of confrontation are followed by a second meeting between the participants in
the initial conversation. In the first half of the story Aksenov's wife visits him in prison and it is suggested

that she too believes him to be guilty of the murder. In the second half Makar comes to Aksenov to
confess that he had been the real murderer and to ask Aksenov for forgiveness.
Both halves of the story conclude with a brief narrative of the sequel to the incidents described. In
the first half Aksenov is tried, convicted, scourged, and deported. In the second half Makar confesses to
the authorities. Aksenov is pardoned, but by the time the document arrives he has died.
The development of the character of the protagonist is also symmetrical, but the symmetry arises
from the juxtaposition of accounts of his emotional state and his reaction to specific situations which are
closely related by their symmetrical positioning in the text but are essentially dissimilar in their
significance for the character of the protagonist. This pattern might be called symmetry of opposites.
An example is the description of the protagonist which begins each half of the story and the
events which appear later in support of the description. In the first half Aksenov is described as fairhaired, curly headed, and handsome. He is a successful merchant for although he is still young he already
owns two shops and a house. He is the father of a family. That he is light-hearted and given to merriment
and song is both stated outright and then corroborated by his flippant reaction to the dream of ill omen
which his wife has about him and by his guitar playing on the second day of his journey. At the beginning
of the second half of the story, his physical appearance has changed completely. His hair has turned white
and his beard has grown out long, narrow, and grey. He has lost all of his worldly goods and has sunk
from a position of relative affluence to that of a penniless convict. He has lost all contact with his family.
Since his imprisonment he has received no word from home and does not know what has become of his
wife and children. All his merriment has evaporated. He sings now only in the choir of the prison church
and is esteemed by his fellow prisoners and the prison authorities for his gravity and meekness.
The protagonist's emotional response to his confrontation with the authorities is quite dissimilar
in either half of the story. In the first half Aksenov is highly agitated, stunned, stammering, and confused.
In the second half he is again highly agitated, but he retains his self-control, and the response that he

makes is firm, lucid, and the result of a conscious decision. The emotional response of the protagonist to
the second conversation in each half of the story is, again, both similar in detail and dissimilar in its
emotional import. In the first half Aksenov sheds tears of despair when he learns of his wife's lack of faith
in his innocence. In the second half he sheds tears of joy as he hears Makar's confession and forgives him.
The implication in the narrative conclusion to each half of the story is that the protagonist's emotional
state remains the same as in the preceding scene, so. that Aksenov's emotional states at the end of the two
halves of the story are opposite to one another. At the end of the first half he is suffering and in despair,
while at the end of the second half he is joyful, calm, and contented.
The symmetry of the structure of the story is further reinforced by a number of verbal echoes in
its two halves. Immediately on either side of the structural mid-point of the story there is a similar
prepositional phrase. The first half of the story ends with the words ". . . to Siberia" and the second half
begins "In Siberia . . ." When Aksenov is threatened by the police inspector in the first half of the story, he
is described in the words "He was shaking all over with fear." When, in the second half, he is threatened
by Makar, "He began to shake all over with fury." The first line of the first half of the story reads "In the
city of Vladimir lived a young merchant, Aksenov." Compare the first line of the second half of the story:
"In Siberia, at forced labour, Aksenov lived for twenty-six years In the confrontation with the police
inspector in the first half of the story. . . [Aksenov] couldn't get out a single word." In the confrontation
with the warden in the second half ". . . he couldn't for a long while get out a single word".
The symmetry of plot and verbal texture has two primary functions. First, it draws attention to
the two main events in the protagonist's life as climactic situations resulting in a profound change in both
the outward and inward character and progress of his life. Second, it organizes the representation of the
life of the protagonist in such a way that two distinct schemes of development become apparent. The
outward and material development of Aksenov's life is presented by what might be called a structural
anaphora. This line of development is the specific function of the symmetry of like to like in the story.
Summarizing this line in brief, one may say that the protagonist passes from worldly success to worldly

wretchedness in the first half of the story, and in the second half this process is repeated more intensely as
he passes from wretchedness to death. Aksenov's inward and spiritual development, on the contrary, is
presented as forming an antithetical pattern, and the representation of this line of development is the
specific function of the symmetry of opposites. Summarizing again, the protagonist passes from lighthearted self-satisfaction to despair and resignation in the first half of the story, but in the second half the
process is reversed as he passes from resignation to contentment and joy.
The presence of two variants of the symmetry that dominates the structure leads to a tension
within the story itself. The account of Aksenov's life contains two lines of development that are distinct
from one another both in structure (as anaphora to antithesis) and in their significance for the protagonist.
A proper understanding of the meaning of the story must take this tension into account and allow it a role
commensurate with its structural importance.
In the story the "truth /justice" of the title has real meaning only in terms of the spiritual plane of
existence hence, its proximity to God in the title of the story. While Aksenov is a victim of injustice on the
material plane, he is treated with great mercy on the spiritual plane, for he is led willy-nilly to the fruits of
spiritual triumph. God is part of this story as more than an incidental element of the proverb that serves as
the title. Like other aspects of the spiritual plane of the work, however, the presence of God is implied
rather than stated.
That the total disregard for material values which characterizes Aksenov at his death is a desirable
quality is a hard lesson to teach. It seems to confront reason and human nature with hostility. To avoid this
hostility the spiritual plane of the story and the lesson that it suggests are masked, but in such a way that
they can be discovered. The narrative, by including no specific mention of the spiritual plane or lesson,
masks their existence. The structure of the narrative, however, produces a tension in the story that can be
resolved only by discovering what has been hidden.

In communicating the meaning of the proverb that serves as its title, the story relies wholly on its
irrational, aesthetic powers. Tolstoy himself wrote in What is Art? "The concern of art consists precisely
in making comprehensible and accessible that which might be incomprehensible and inaccessible in the
form of reasoned explanation." It is hardly surprising, then, that in repudiating the works that he had
written prior to 1880, he chose to make an exception of "God Sees the Truth, But Waits."
CONCLUSION:
The story touches the sense of mans idea of justice. Clearly here it shows that the Laws of Man
truly is different to the Laws of Heavens or of God. While the Laws of Man interrogates, convicts, relies
on physical evidence, and punishes swiftly, the Laws of the Heavens or of God is all-knowing, definite,
relies on faith, and forgives in the right time.
ON THE IMAGE OF THE SELF:
On the story, the protagonist started as a person of the world who lives on the joys and of on
needs of the flesh. However, a time came when he is to discover his self by being subjected to peril and
by being isolated from the world (the Siberian prison). There, he rejects all that he ever was as a person of
the world and of flesh and he begins to achieve emptiness as a human. Now being empty of what he
was, he became available to absorbing what God wants him to be and then on he achieved fulfilment of
his purpose driven life as a person of the spirit the discovery of the true self.
The narrative shows how God works on the development of the self, inter-twining destinies so
that man learns, through each encounter, how forgiving others mean forgiveness of our own sins and selffulfilment , how we are used to satisfy Gods plans for the lost sons and how man can see the portion of
God inside him.

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