“I do not know what I am afraid of; all I know is that I had a bad dream. I dreamt you returned from the town, and when you took off your cap I saw that your hair was quite grey."
At the beginning of the story, when Aksionov sets off for the Nizhy Fair, his wife tells him of a portentous dream in which he returned from the fair with grey hair. While she takes the ambiguous dream symbolism to mean he shouldn't attend the fair, Aksionov treats her dream as auspicious and assures her that the dream must mean he is going to have good luck. He is unaware that her dream foreshadows the premature aging he will undergo during his wrongful imprisonment.
"Vanya dearest, tell your wife the truth; was it not you who did it?"
While visiting her husband in prison, Aksionov's wife uses a pet name to address him before she asks if he committed the murder, perhaps because the sight of him in chains and prison uniform associates him in her mind with criminality. This passage is significant because of what it reveals about the theme of injustice: Aksionov realizes he cannot expect to be treated as innocent even by his wife, who, like the rest of the criminal justice system, has assumed his guilt despite a lack of evidence or motive.
And Aksionov wrote no more petitions; gave up all hope, and only prayed to God.
In the wake of his wife’s suspicion and the news that his appeal to the czar has been denied, Aksionov gives up hope in the justice system and puts his faith in God as the only entity who knows the truth of his innocence. With his relinquished hope of a court appeal, Aksionov accepts his fate and prays to God, assuming he is in his position as part of God's plan for him.
"God will forgive you!" said he. "Maybe I am a hundred times worse than you."
After Semyonich, the man who framed Aksionov, desperately begs for Aksionov's forgiveness, Aksionov is reticent. It is only once he sees Semyonich's tears and begins to weep himself that Aksionov finds the words to grant Semyonich God's forgiveness. The moment speaks to how profoundly Aksionov has reckoned with his fate and invested his faith in God. Even though he is face to face with the man who framed him and caused him to lose his life as he knew it, Aksionov continues to believe that he himself may be worse than Semyonich. He assumes God must have punished him for something which he will only understand in the afterlife, if at all.
And at these words his heart grew light, and the longing for home left him. He no longer had any desire to leave the prison, but only hoped for his last hour to come.
Having granted Semyonich God's forgiveness, Aksionov experiences a moment of lightness that resembles transcendence. By speaking aloud his forgiveness, Aksionov relieves himself of the burden of resentment. He has so thoroughly accepted his fate that he no longer wishes for home. He has accepted his life for what it is and now wishes only for death.
