1860s and 1870s

Arrest of the merchant Aksyonov
An illustration for the novel "God Sees the Truth, but Waits"
V. Surikov, 1882

One story that Tolstoy wrote for his primer was "God Sees the Truth, but Waits," which the character Platon Karataev also narrates in War and Peace. In his later book What Is Art? (1898), Tolstoy named this tale, along with "Prisoner of the Caucasus," as the only early works of which he was proud.