Ivan has been arrested and charged with the murder a merchant from Ryazan. What will Ivan’s wife say?

Ivan’s wife was in despair, and did not know what to believe. Her children were all quite small; one was a baby at her breast.Taking them all with her, she went to the town where her husband was in jail. At first she was not allowed to see him; but after much begging, she obtained permission from the officials, and was taken to him. When she saw her husband in prison dress and in chains, shut up with thieves and criminals, she fell down and did not come to her senses for a long time. Then she drew her children to her, and sat down near him. She told him of things at home, and asked about what had happened to him. He told her all, and she asked, “What can we do now?”

“We must petition the Tsar not to let an innocent man perish.”

His wife told him that she had sent a petition to the Tsar, but that it had not been accepted.

Ivan did not reply, but only looked downcast.

Then his wife said, “It was not for nothing I dreamt your hair had turned gray. You remember? You should not have started that day..” And passing her fingers through his hair, she said, “Ivan, dear, tell your wife the truth; was it not you who did it?”

“So you, too, suspect me!” said Ivan, and hiding his face in his hands, he began to weep. Then a soldier came to say that his wife and children must go away; and Ivan said good-bye to his family for the last time.

When they were gone, Ivan recalled what had been said, and when he remembered that his wife had suspected him, he said to himself, “It seems that only God can know the truth, it is to Him alone we must appeal, and from Him alone expect mercy.”

And Ivan wrote no more petitions; gave up all hope, and only prayed to God.

Ivan was condemned to be flogged and sent to the mines. So he was flogged with a whip with a lash of leather thongs,  and when the wounds made by the whip healed, he was driven to Siberia with other convicts.

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Allow yourself to feel Ivan’s pain, anger, and despair. Have you ever felt that way? How did you make sense of it? In our next post we’ll see how Ivan begins to handle his seeming abandonment by God and family.

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Story adapted from “God Sees the Truth, But Waits” in Walk in the Light and Twenty-Three Tales by Leo Tolstoy