Left to Tell: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Immaculée is praying with the rosary when the killers return to search the house. She always struggles with the part of the Lord’s prayer about forgiveness, because she is not sure that she can forgive the killers. On the other side of the bathroom door, the killers are searching the wardrobe and laughing. Immaculée is horrified and momentarily wishes that they would burn in hell. She hears the voice of the devil again, pointing out that she is also guilty of hatred because she wanted the killers to suffer. The devil calls her a liar for asking God to save her when she does not have forgiveness in her heart, and Immaculée realizes that the devil is right. At the same time, she feels like being asked to forgive the killers is unfair and “impossible.” 

 The killers leave, and Immaculée prays in gratitude. However, she struggles with the feeling that her prayers are “hollow.” She asks God to open her heart to forgiveness and spends the next week so wrapped up in prayer that she barely eats or drinks and isn’t aware of having slept. One night she hears screaming, followed by the cries of a baby. She realizes that the killers must have murdered the child’s mother and left it to die. By morning, the baby’s cries have stopped. When Immaculée asks God how she can forgive people who would do that to a child, she hears God tell her: “You are all My children… and the baby is with Me now.”

This is the moment Immaculée has been waiting for. She sees the killers as children who are hurting others and themselves, but not as fundamentally evil. She prays that God will help the killers see the error in their ways while they still have time left on Earth. She hears God telling her to forgive the killers, “for they know not what they do.” Guided by God, she feels love, forgiveness, and pity for the killers. That night she sleeps peacefully for the first time since entering the bathroom.