The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
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THE KREUTZER SONATA AND OTHER STORIES
By Count Leo Tolstoi
Author of "Resurrection," "Life is Worth Living," "Ivan the Fool," Etc.
CONTENTS.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
KREUTZER SONATA.
IVAN THE FOOL.
A LOST OPPORTUNITY.
POLIKUSHKA
THE CANDLE.
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.
On comparing with the original Russian some English translations of
Count Tolstoi's works, published both in this country and in England, I
concluded that they were far from being accurate. The majority of them
were retranslations from the French, and I found that the respective
transitions through which they had passed tended to obliterate many of
the beauties of the Russian language and of the peculiar characteristics
of Russian life. A satisfactory translation can be made only by one who
understands the language and SPIRIT of the Russian people. As Tolstoi's
writings contain so many idioms it is not an easy task to render them
into intelligible English, and the one who successfully accomplishes
this must be a native of Russia, commanding the English and Russian
languages with equal fluency.
The story of "Ivan the Fool" portrays Tolstoi's communistic ideas,
involving the abolition of military forces, middlemen, despotism, and
money. Instead of these he would establish on earth a kingdom in which
each and every person would become a worker and producer. The author
describes the various struggles through which three brothers passed,
beset as they were by devils large and small, until they reached the
ideal state of existence which he believes to be the only happy one
attainable in this world.
On reading this little story one is surprised that the Russian censor
passed it, as it is devoted to a narration of ideas quite at variance
with the present policy of the government of that country.
"A Lost Opportunity" is a singularly true picture of peasant life, which
evinces a deep study of the subject on the part of the writer. Tolstoi
has drawn many of the peculiar customs of the Russian peasant in a
masterly manner, and I doubt if he has given a more comprehensive
description of this feature of Russian life in any of his other works.
In this story also he has presented many traits which are common to
human nature throughout the world, and this gives an added interest to
the book. The language is simple and picturesque, and the characters are
drawn with remarkable fidelity to nature. The moral of this tale points
out how the hero Ivan might have avoided the terrible consequences of a
quarrel with his neighbor (which grew out of nothing) if he had lived in
accordance with the scriptural injunction to forgive his brother's sins
and seek not for revenge.
The story of "Polikushka" is a very graphic description of the life led
by a servant of the court household of a certain nobleman, in which the
author portrays the different conditions and surroundings enjoyed by
these servants from those of the ordinary or common peasants. It is a
true and powerful reproduction of an element in Russian life but little
written about heretofore. Like the other stories of this great writer,
"Polikushka" has a moral to which we all might profitably give heed. He
illustrates the awful consequences of intemperance, and concludes that
only kind treatment can reform the victims of alcohol.
For much valuable assistance in the work of these translations, I am
deeply indebted to the bright English scholarship of my devoted wife.
THE KREUTZER SONATA.
CHAPTER I.
Travellers left and entered our car at every stopping of the train.
Three persons, however, remained, bound, like myself, for the farthest
station: a lady neither young nor pretty, smoking cigarettes, with
a thin face, a cap on her head, and wearing a semi-masculine outer
garment; then her companion, a very loquacious gentleman of about forty
years, with baggage entirely new and arranged in an orderly manner;
then a gentleman who held himself entirely aloof, short in stature, very
nervous, of uncertain age, with bright eyes, not pronounced in color,
but extremely attractive,--eyes that darted with rapidity from one
object to another.
This gentleman, during almost all the journey thus far, had entered into
conversation with no fellow-traveller, as if he carefully avoided all
acquaintance. When spoken to, he answered curtly and decisively, and
began to look out of the car window obstinately.
Yet it seemed to me that the solitude weighed upon him. He seemed to
perceive that I understood this, and when our eyes met, as happened
frequently, since we were sitting almost opposite each other, he turned
away his head, and avoided conversation with me as much as with the
others. At nightfall, during a stop at a large station, the gentleman
with the fine baggage--a lawyer, as I have since learned--got out with
his companion to drink some tea at the restaurant. During their absence
several new travellers entered the car, among whom was a tall old man,
shaven and wrinkled, evidently a merchant, wearing a large heavily-lined
cloak and a big cap. This merchant sat down opposite the empty seats of
the lawyer and his companion, and straightway entered into conversation
with a young man who seemed like an employee in some commercial house,
and who had likewise just boarded the train. At first the clerk had
remarked that the seat opposite was occupied, and the old man had
answered that he should get out at the first station. Thus their
conversation started.
I was sitting not far from these two travellers, and, as the train was
not in motion, I could catch bits of their conversation when others were
not talking.
They talked first of the prices of goods and the condition of business;
they referred to a person whom they both knew; then they plunged into
the fair at Nijni Novgorod. The clerk boasted of knowing people who were
leading a gay life there, but the old man did not allow him to continue,
and, interrupting him, began to describe the festivities of the previous
year at Kounavino, in which he had taken part. He was evidently proud
of these recollections, and, probably thinking that this would detract
nothing from the gravity which his face and manners expressed, he
related with pride how, when drunk, he had fired, at Kounavino, such a
broadside that he could describe it only in the other's ear.
The clerk began to laugh noisily. The old man laughed too, showing two
long yellow teeth. Their conversation not interesting me, I left the car
to stretch my legs. At the door I met the lawyer and his lady.
"You have no more time," the lawyer said to me. "The second bell is
about to ring."
Indeed I had scarcely reached the rear of the train when the bell
sounded. As I entered the car again, the lawyer was talking with his
companion in an animated fashion. The merchant, sitting opposite them,
was taciturn.
"And then she squarely declared to her husband," said the lawyer with a
smile, as I passed by them, "that she neither could nor would live with
him, because" . . .
And he continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my
attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new
traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer's
voice. The conversation had passed from a special case to general
considerations.
"And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between
the two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that
seldom happened. Is it not so?" asked the lawyer of the two merchants,
evidently trying to drag them into the conversation.
Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took
off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer.
When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said:
"Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the
present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become
too learned."
The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever
increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could
no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was
saying, I drew nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was evidently
interested also, and, without changing his seat, he lent an ear.
"But what harm is there in education?" asked the lady, with a smile that
was scarcely perceptible. "Would it be better to marry as in the old
days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before
marriage?" she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not
the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words she believed
he was going to speak. "Women did not know whether they would love or
would be loved, and they were married to the first comer, and suffered
all their lives. Then you think it was better so?" she continued,
evidently addressing the lawyer and myself, and not at all the old man.
"People have become too learned," repeated the last, looking at the lady
with contempt, and leaving her question unanswered.
"I should be curious to know how you explain the correlation between
education and conjugal differences," said the lawyer, with a slight
smile.
The merchant wanted to make some reply, but the lady interrupted him.
"No, those days are past."
The lawyer cut short her words:--
"Let him express his thought."
"Because there is no more fear," replied the old man.
"But how will you marry people who do not love each other? Only
animals can be coupled at the will of a proprietor. But people have
inclinations, attachments," the lady hastened to say, casting a glance
at the lawyer, at me, and even at the clerk, who, standing up
and leaning his elbow on the back of a seat, was listening to the
conversation with a smile.
"You are wrong to say that, madam," said the old man. "The animals are
beasts, but man has received the law."
"But, nevertheless, how is one to live with a man when there is no
love?" said the lady, evidently excited by the general sympathy and
attention.
"Formerly no such distinctions were made," said the old man, gravely.
"Only now have they become a part of our habits. As soon as the least
thing happens, the wife says: 'I release you. I am going to leave your
house.' Even among the moujiks this fashion has become acclimated.
'There,' she says, 'here are your shirts and drawers. I am going off
with Vanka. His hair is curlier than yours.' Just go talk with them. And
yet the first rule for the wife should be fear."
The clerk looked at the lawyer, the lady, and myself, evidently
repressing a smile, and all ready to deride or approve the merchant's
words, according to the attitude of the others.
"What fear?" said the lady.
"This fear,--the wife must fear her husband; that is what fear."
"Oh, that, my little father, that is ended."
"No, madam, that cannot end. As she, Eve, the woman, was taken from
man's ribs, so she will remain unto the end of the world," said the old
man, shaking his head so triumphantly and so severely that the clerk,
deciding that the victory was on his side, burst into a loud laugh.
"Yes, you men think so," replied the lady, without surrendering, and
turning toward us. "You have given yourself liberty. As for woman, you
wish to keep her in the seraglio. To you, everything is permissible. Is
it not so?"
"Oh, man,--that's another affair."
"Then, according to you, to man everything is permissible?"
"No one gives him this permission; only, if the man behaves badly
outside, the family is not increased thereby; but the woman, the wife,
is a fragile vessel," continued the merchant, severely.
His tone of authority evidently subjugated his hearers. Even the lady
felt crushed, but she did not surrender.
"Yes, but you will admit, I think, that woman is a human being, and has
feelings like her husband. What should she do if she does not love her
husband?"
"If she does not love him!" repeated the old man, stormily, and knitting
his brows; "why, she will be made to love him."
This unexpected argument pleased the clerk, and he uttered a murmur of
approbation.
"Oh, no, she will not be forced," said the lady. "Where there is no
love, one cannot be obliged to love in spite of herself."
"And if the wife deceives her husband, what is to be done?" said the
lawyer.
"That should not happen," said the old man. "He must have his eyes about
him."
"And if it does happen, all the same? You will admit that it does
happen?"
"It happens among the upper classes, not among us," answered the old
man. "And if any husband is found who is such a fool as not to rule his
wife, he will not have robbed her. But no scandal, nevertheless. Love
or not, but do not disturb the household. Every husband can govern his
wife. He has the necessary power. It is only the imbecile who does not
succeed in doing so."
Everybody was silent. The clerk moved, advanced, and, not wishing to lag
behind the others in the conversation, began with his eternal smile:
"Yes, in the house of our employer, a scandal has arisen, and it is very
difficult to view the matter clearly. The wife loved to amuse herself,
and began to go astray. He is a capable and serious man. First, it was
with the book-keeper. The husband tried to bring her back to reason
through kindness. She did not change her conduct. She plunged into all
sorts of beastliness. She began to steal his money. He beat her, but
she grew worse and worse. To an unbaptized, to a pagan, to a Jew (saving
your permission), she went in succession for her caresses. What could
the employer do? He has dropped her entirely, and now he lives as a
bachelor. As for her, she is dragging in the depths."
"He is an imbecile," said the old man. "If from the first he had not
allowed her to go in her own fashion, and had kept a firm hand upon her,
she would be living honestly, no danger. Liberty must be taken away from
the beginning. Do not trust yourself to your horse upon the highway. Do
not trust yourself to your wife at home."
At that moment the conductor passed, asking for the tickets for the next
station. The old man gave up his.
"Yes, the feminine sex must be dominated in season, else all will
perish."
"And you yourselves, at Kounavino, did you not lead a gay life with the
pretty girls?" asked the lawyer with a smile.
"Oh, that's another matter," said the merchant, severely. "Good-by,"
he added, rising. He wrapped himself in his cloak, lifted his cap, and,
taking his bag, left the car.
CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had the old man gone when a general conversation began.
"There's a little Old Testament father for you," said the clerk.
"He is a Domostroy,"* said the lady. "What savage ideas about a woman
and marriage!"
*The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the
Terrible.
"Yes, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "we are still a long way from the
European ideas upon marriage. First, the rights of woman, then free
marriage, then divorce, as a question not yet solved." . . .
"The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not
understand," rejoined the lady, "is that only love consecrates marriage,
and that the real marriage is that which is consecrated by love."
The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of one accustomed to store
in his memory all intelligent conversation that he hears, in order to
make use of it afterwards.
"But what is this love that consecrates marriage?" said, suddenly, the
voice of the nervous and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us, had
approached.
He was standing with his hand on the seat, and evidently agitated. His
face was red, a vein in his forehead was swollen, and the muscles of his
cheeks quivered.
"What is this love that consecrates marriage?" he repeated.
"What love?" said the lady. "The ordinary love of husband and wife."
"And how, then, can ordinary love consecrate marriage?" continued the
nervous gentleman, still excited, and with a displeased air. He seemed
to wish to say something disagreeable to the lady. She felt it, and
began to grow agitated.
"How? Why, very simply," said she.
The nervous gentleman seized the word as it left her lips.
"No, not simply."
"Madam says," interceded the lawyer indicating his companion, "that
marriage should be first the result of an attachment, of a love, if
you will, and that, when love exists, and in that case only, marriage
represents something sacred. But every marriage which is not based on
a natural attachment, on love, has in it nothing that is morally
obligatory. Is not that the idea that you intended to convey?" he asked
the lady.
The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this
translation of her thoughts.
"Then," resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.
But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself,
without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:
"Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone
consecrates marriage?"
"Everybody knows what love is," said the lady.
"But I don't know, and I should like to know how you define it."
"How? It is very simple," said the lady.
And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:
"Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the
exclusion of all others. . . ."
"A preference for how long? . . . For a month, two days, or half an
hour?" said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.
"No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the same thing."
"Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same thing. Of the preference
for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. But I ask: a
preference for how long?"
"For how long? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes."
"But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this
preference for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases
several years, oftener several months, or even weeks, days,
hours. . . ."
"Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me," said all three of us at the same time.
The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.
"Yes, I know," he said, shouting louder than all of us; "you are talking
of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man
feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very
little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,--and it is
a true one,--'Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter
wormwood."'
"Ah, but what you say is terrible! There certainly exists among human
beings this feeling which is called love, and which lasts, not for
months and years, but for life."
"No, that does not exist. Even if it should be admitted that Menelaus
had preferred Helen all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris; and
so it has been, is, and will be eternally. And it cannot be otherwise,
just as it cannot happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas marked
with a special sign should fall side by side. Further, this is not only
an improbability, but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will come
to Helen or to Menelaus. The whole difference is that to one it comes
sooner, to the other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is
written that 'they loved each other all their lives.' And none but
children can believe it. To talk of loving a man or woman for life is
like saying that a candle can burn forever."
"But you are talking of physical love. Do you not admit a love based
upon a conformity of ideals, on a spiritual affinity?"
"Why not? But in that case it is not necessary to procreate together
(excuse my brutality). The point is that this conformity of ideals is
not met among old people, but among young and pretty persons," said he,
and he began to laugh disagreeably.
"Yes, I affirm that love, real love, does not consecrate marriage, as we
are in the habit of believing, but that, on the contrary, it ruins it."
"Permit me," said the lawyer. "The facts contradict your words. We
see that marriage exists, that all humanity--at least the larger
portion--lives conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end
a long life together."
The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.
"And what then? You say that marriage is based upon love, and when I
give voice to a doubt as to the existence of any other love than sensual
love, you prove to me the existence of love by marriage. But in our day
marriage is only a violence and falsehood."
"No, pardon me," said the lawyer. "I say only that marriages have
existed and do exist."
"But how and why do they exist? They have existed, and they do exist,
for people who have seen, and do see, in marriage something sacramental,
a sacrament that is binding before God. For such people marriages exist,
but to us they are only hypocrisy and violence. We feel it, and, to
clear ourselves, we preach free love; but, really, to preach free love
is only a call backward to the promiscuity of the sexes (excuse me,
he said to the lady), the haphazard sin of certain raskolniks. The old
foundation is shattered; we must build a new one, but we must not preach
debauchery."
He grew so warm that all became silent, looking at him in astonishment.
"And yet the transition state is terrible. People feel that haphazard
sin is inadmissible. It is necessary in some way or other to regulate
the sexual relations; but there exists no other foundation than the old
one, in which nobody longer believes? People marry in the old fashion,
without believing in what they do, and the result is falsehood,
violence. When it is falsehood alone, it is easily endured. The husband
and wife simply deceive the world by professing to live monogamically.
If they really are polygamous and polyandrous, it is bad, but
acceptable. But when, as often happens, the husband and the wife have
taken upon themselves the obligation to live together all their lives
(they themselves do not know why), and from the second month have
already a desire to separate, but continue to live together just the
same, then comes that infernal existence in which they resort to drink,
in which they fire revolvers, in which they assassinate each other, in
which they poison each other."
All were silent, but we felt ill at ease.
"Yes, these critical episodes happen in marital life. For instance,
there is the Posdnicheff affair," said the lawyer, wishing to stop the
conversation on this embarrassing and too exciting ground. "Have you
read how he killed his wife through jealousy?"
The lady said that she had not read it. The nervous gentleman said
nothing, and changed color.
"I see that you have divined who I am," said he, suddenly, after a
pause.
"No, I have not had that pleasure."
"It is no great pleasure. I am Posdnicheff."
New silence. He blushed, then turned pale again.
"What matters it, however?" said he. "Excuse me, I do not wish to
embarrass you."
And he resumed his old seat.
CHAPTER III.
I resumed mine, also. The lawyer and the lady whispered together. I was
sitting beside Posdnicheff, and I maintained silence. I desired to talk
to him, but I did not know how to begin, and thus an hour passed until
we reached the next station.
There the lawyer and the lady went out, as well as the clerk. We were
left alone, Posdnicheff and I.
"They say it, and they lie, or they do not understand," said
Posdnicheff.
"Of what are you talking?"
"Why, still the same thing."
He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and pressed his hands against his
temples.
"Love, marriage, family,--all lies, lies, lies."
He rose, lowered the lamp-shade, lay down with his elbows on the
cushion, and closed his eyes. He remained thus for a minute.
"Is it disagreeable to you to remain with me, now that you know who I
am?"
"Oh, no."
"You have no desire to sleep?"
"Not at all."
"Then do you want me to tell you the story of my life?"
Just then the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured
look, and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the
rest of the story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they
entered did not stop him.
His face, while he was talking, changed several times so completely
that it bore positively no resemblance to itself as it had appeared just
before. His eyes, his mouth, his moustache, and even his beard, all were
new. Each time it was a beautiful and touching physiognomy, and these
transformations were produced suddenly in the penumbra; and for five
minutes it was the same face, that could not be compared to that of five
minutes before. And then, I know not how, it changed again, and became
unrecognizable.
CHAPTER IV.
"Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful
history,--yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than
the outcome."
He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and
began:--
"To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning. It
must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my marriage.
First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman of the
steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University pupil, a
graduate of the law school. I married in my thirtieth year. But before
talking to you of my marriage, I must tell you how I lived formerly,
and what ideas I had of conjugal life. I led the life of so many other
so-called respectable people,--that is, in debauchery. And like the
majority, while leading the life of a debauche, I was convinced that I
was a man of irreproachable morality.