The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

by Лев Толстой

  "'We were having some music.'

  "'I did not expect—,' she began at the same time, chiming in with the tone of the other.

  "But neither he nor she finished their remarks. The same rage that I had felt the previous week took possession of me. I felt the need of giving free course to my violence and 'the joy of wrath.'

  "No, they did not finish. That other thing was going to begin, of which he was afraid, and was going to annihilate what they wanted to say. I threw myself upon her, still hiding the dagger, that he might not prevent me from striking where I desired, in her bosom, under the breast. At that moment he saw . . . and, what I did not expect on his part, he quickly seized my hand, and cried:

  "'Come to your senses! What are you doing? Help! Help!'

  "I tore my hands from his grasp, and leaped upon him. I must have been very terrible, for he turned as white as a sheet, to his lips. His eyes scintillated singularly, and—again what I did not expect of him—he scrambled under the piano, toward the other room. I tried to follow him, but a very heavy weight fell upon my left arm. It was she.

  "I made an effort to clear myself. She clung more heavily than ever, refusing to let go. This unexpected obstacle, this burden, and this repugnant touch only irritated me the more. I perceived that I was completely mad, that I must be frightful, and I was glad of it. With a sudden impulse, and with all my strength, I dealt her, with my left elbow, a blow squarely in the face.

  "She uttered a cry and let go my arm. I wanted to follow the other, but I felt that it would be ridiculous to pursue in my stockings the lover of my wife, and I did not wish to be grotesque, I wished to be terrible. In spite of my extreme rage, I was all the time conscious of the impression that I was making upon others, and even this impression partially guided me.

  "I turned toward her. She had fallen on the long easy chair, and, covering her face at the spot where I had struck her, she looked at me. Her features exhibited fear and hatred toward me, her enemy, such as the rat exhibits when one lifts the rat-trap. At least, I saw nothing in her but that fear and hatred, the fear and hatred which love for another had provoked. Perhaps I still should have restrained myself, and should not have gone to the last extremity, if she had maintained silence. But suddenly she began to speak; she grasped my hand that held the dagger.

  "'Come to your senses! What are you doing? What is the matter with you? Nothing has happened, nothing, nothing! I swear it to you!'

  "I might have delayed longer, but these last words, from which I inferred the contrary of what they affirmed,—that is, that EVERYTHING had happened,—these words called for a reply. And the reply must correspond to the condition into which I had lashed myself, and which was increasing and must continue to increase. Rage has its laws.

  "'Do not lie, wretch. Do not lie!' I roared.

  "With my left hand I seized her hands. She disengaged herself. Then, without dropping my dagger, I seized her by the throat, forced her to the floor, and began to strangle her. With her two hands she clutched mine, tearing them from her throat, stifling. Then I struck her a blow with the dagger, in the left side, between the lower ribs.

  "When people say that they do not remember what they do in a fit of fury, they talk nonsense. It is false. I remember everything.

  "I did not lose my consciousness for a single moment. The more I lashed myself to fury, the clearer my mind became, and I could not help seeing what I did. I cannot say that I knew in advance what I would do, but at the moment when I acted, and it seems to me even a little before, I knew what I was doing, as if to make it possible to repent, and to be able to say later that I could have stopped.

  "I knew that I struck the blow between the ribs, and that the dagger entered.

  "At the second when I did it, I knew that I was performing a horrible act, such as I had never performed,—an act that would have frightful consequences. My thought was as quick as lightning, and the deed followed immediately. The act, to my inner sense, had an extraordinary clearness. I perceived the resistance of the corset and then something else, and then the sinking of the knife into a soft substance. She clutched at the dagger with her hands, and cut herself with it, but could not restrain the blow.

  "Long afterward, in prison when the moral revolution had been effected within me, I thought of that minute, I remembered it as far as I could, and I co-ordinated all the sudden changes. I remembered the terrible consciousness which I felt,—that I was killing a wife, MY wife.

  "I well remember the horror of that consciousness and I know vaguely that, having plunged in the dagger, I drew it out again immediately, wishing to repair and arrest my action. She straightened up and cried:

  "'Nurse, he has killed me!'

  "The old nurse, who had heard the noise, was standing in the doorway. I was still erect, waiting, and not believing myself in what had happened. But at that moment, from under her corset, the blood gushed forth. Then only did I understand that all reparation was impossible, and promptly I decided that it was not even necessary, that all had happened in accordance with my wish, and that I had fulfilled my desire. I waited until she fell, and until the nurse, exclaiming, 'Oh, my God!' ran to her; then only I threw away the dagger and went out of the room.

  "'I must not be agitated. I must be conscious of what I am doing,' I said to myself, looking neither at her nor at the old nurse. The latter cried and called the maid. I passed through the hall, and, after having sent the maid, started for my study.

  "'What shall I do now?' I asked myself.

  "And immediately I understood what I should do. Directly after entering the study, I went straight to the wall, took down the revolver, and examined it attentively. It was loaded. Then I placed it on the table. Next I picked up the sheath of the dagger, which had dropped down behind the sofa, and then I sat down. I remained thus for a long time. I thought of nothing, I did not try to remember anything. I heard a stifled noise of steps, a movement of objects and of tapestries, then the arrival of a person, and then the arrival of another person. Then I saw Gregor bring into my room the baggage from the railway; as if any one needed it!

  "'Have you heard what has happened?' I asked him. 'Have you told the dvornik to inform the police?'

  "He made no answer, and went out. I rose, closed the door, took the cigarettes and the matches, and began to smoke. I had not finished one cigarette, when a drowsy feeling came over me and sent me into a deep sleep. I surely slept two hours. I remember having dreamed that I was on good terms with her, that after a quarrel we were in the act of making up, that something prevented us, but that we were friends all the same.

  "A knock at the door awoke me.

  "'It is the police,' thought I, as I opened my eyes. 'I have killed, I believe. But perhaps it is SHE; perhaps nothing has happened.'

  "Another knock. I did not answer. I was solving the question: 'Has it happened or not? Yes, it has happened.'

  "I remembered the resistance of the corset, and then. . . . 'Yes, it has happened. Yes, it has happened. Yes, now I must execute myself,' said I to myself.

  "I said it, but I knew well that I should not kill myself. Nevertheless, I rose and took the revolver, but, strange thing, I remembered that formerly I had very often had suicidal ideas, that that very night, on the cars, it had seemed to me easy, especially easy because I thought how it would stupefy her. Now I not only could not kill myself, but I could not even think of it.

  "'Why do it?' I asked myself, without answering.

  "Another knock at the door.

  "'Yes, but I must first know who is knocking. I have time enough.'

  "I put the revolver back on the table, and hid it under my newspaper. I went to the door and drew back the bolt.

  "It was my wife's sister,—a good and stupid widow.

  "'Basile, what does this mean?' said she, and her tears, always ready, began to flow.

  "'What do you want?' I asked roughly.

  "I saw clearly that there was no necessity of being rough with her, but I could not
speak in any other tone.

  "'Basile, she is dying. Ivan Fedorowitch says so.'

  "Ivan Fedorowitch was the doctor, HER doctor, her counsellor.

  "'Is he here?' I inquired.

  "And all my hatred of her arose anew.

  "Well, what?

  "'Basile, go to her! Ah! how terrible it is!' said she.

  "'Go to her?' I asked myself; and immediately I made answer to myself that I ought to go, that probably that was the thing that is usually done when a husband like myself kills his wife, that it was absolutely necessary that I should go and see her.

  "'If that is the proper thing, I must go,' I repeated to myself. 'Yes, if it is necessary, I shall still have time,' said I to myself, thinking of my intention of blowing my brains out.

  "And I followed my sister-in-law. 'Now there are going to be phrases and grimaces, but I will not yield,' I declared to myself.

  "'Wait,' said I to my sister-in-law, 'it is stupid to be without boots. Let me at least put on my slippers.'"

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  "Strange thing! Again, when I had left my study, and was passing through the familiar rooms, again the hope came to me that nothing had happened. But the odor of the drugs, iodoform and phenic acid, brought me back to a sense of reality.

  "'No, everything has happened.'

  "In passing through the hall, beside the children's chamber, I saw little Lise. She was looking at me, with eyes that were full of fear. I even thought that all the children were looking at me. As I approached the door of our sleeping-room, a servant opened it from within, and came out. The first thing that I noticed was HER light gray dress upon a chair, all dark with blood. On our common bed she was stretched, with knees drawn up.

  "She lay very high, upon pillows, with her chemise half open. Linen had been placed upon the wound. A heavy smell of iodoform filled the room. Before, and more than anything else, I was astonished at her face, which was swollen and bruised under the eyes and over a part of the nose. This was the result of the blow that I had struck her with my elbow, when she had tried to hold me back. Of beauty there was no trace left. I saw something hideous in her. I stopped upon the threshold.

  "'Approach, approach her,' said her sister.

  "'Yes, probably she repents,' thought I; 'shall I forgive her? Yes, she is dying, I must forgive her,' I added, trying to be generous.

  "I approached the bedside. With difficulty she raised her eyes, one of which was swollen, and uttered these words haltingly:

  "'You have accomplished what you desired. You have killed me.'

  "And in her face, through the physical sufferings, in spite of the approach of death, was expressed the same old hatred, so familiar to me.

  "'The children . . . I will not give them to you . . . all the same. . . . She (her sister) shall take them.' . . .

  "But of that which I considered essential, of her fault, of her treason, one would have said that she did not think it necessary to say even a word.

  "'Yes, revel in what you have done.'

  "And she sobbed.

  "At the door stood her sister with the children.

  "'Yes, see what you have done!'

  "I cast a glance at the children, and then at her bruised and swollen face, and for the first time I forgot myself (my rights, my pride), and for the first time I saw in her a human being, a sister.

  "And all that which a moment before had been so offensive to me now seemed to me so petty,—all this jealousy,—and, on the contrary, what I had done seemed to me so important that I felt like bending over, approaching my face to her hand, and saying:

  "'Forgive me!'

  "But I did not dare. She was silent, with eyelids lowered, evidently having no strength to speak further. Then her deformed face began to tremble and shrivel, and she feebly pushed me back.

  "'Why has all this happened? Why?'

  "'Forgive me,' said I.

  "'Yes, if you had not killed me,' she cried suddenly, and her eyes shone feverishly. 'Forgiveness—that is nothing. . . . If I only do not die! Ah, you have accomplished what you desired! I hate you!'

  "Then she grew delirious. She was frightened, and cried:

  "'Fire, I do not fear . . . but strike them all . . . He has gone. . . . He has gone.' . . .

  "The delirium continued. She no longer recognized the children, not even little Lise, who had approached. Toward noon she died. As for me, I was arrested before her death, at eight o'clock in the morning. They took me to the police station, and then to prison, and there, during eleven months, awaiting the verdict, I reflected upon myself, and upon my past, and I understood it. Yes, I began to understand from the third day. The third day they took me to the house." . . .

  Posdnicheff seemed to wish to add something, but, no longer having the strength to repress his sobs, he stopped. After a few minutes, having recovered his calmness, he resumed:

  "I began to understand only when I saw her in the coffin." . . .

  He uttered a sob, and then immediately continued, with haste:

  "Then only, when I saw her dead face, did I understand all that I had done. I understood that it was I, I, who had killed her. I understood that I was the cause of the fact that she, who had been a moving, living, palpitating being, had now become motionless and cold, and that there was no way of repairing this thing. He who has not lived through that cannot understand it."

  We remained silent a long time. Posdnicheff sobbed and trembled before me. His face had become delicate and long, and his mouth had grown larger.

  "Yes," said he suddenly, "if I had known what I now know, I should never have married her, never, not for anything."

  Again we remained silent for a long time.

  "Yes, that is what I have done, that is my experience, We must understand the real meaning of the words of the Gospel,—Matthew, V. 28,—'that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery'; and these words relate to the wife, to the sister, and not only to the wife of another, but especially to one's own wife."

  THE END.

  If the reading of this book has interested you, do not fail to get its sequel, entitled "KREUTZER SONATA BEARING FRUIT," by Pauline Grayson, which is an exceedingly interesting narrative showing one of the results of the ideas set forth in "Kreutzer Sonata." It is bound in paper covers and will be sent by mail, postage paid, upon receipt of 25 cents. Address all orders to J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 57 Rose Street, New York.

  LESSON OF "THE KREUTZER SONATA."

  I have received, and still continue to receive, numbers of letters from persons who are perfect strangers to me, asking me to state in plain and simple language my own views on the subject handled in the story entitled "The Kreutzer Sonata." With this request I shall now endeavor to comply.

  My views on the question may be succinctly stated as follows: Without entering into details, it will be generally admitted that I am accurate in saying that many people condone in young men a course of conduct with regard to the other sex which is incompatible with strict morality, and that this dissoluteness is pardoned generally. Both parents and the government, in consequence of this view, may be said to wink at profligacy, and even in the last resource to encourage its practice. I am of opinion that this is not right.

  It is not possible that the health of one class should necessitate the ruin of another, and, in consequence, it is our first duty to turn a deaf ear to such an essential immoral doctrine, no matter how strongly society may have established or law protected it. Moreover, it needs to be fully recognized that men are rightly to be held responsible for the consequences of their own acts, and that these are no longer to be visited on the woman alone. It follows from this that it is the duty of men who do not wish to lead a life of infamy to practice such continence in respect to all woman as they would were the female society in which they move made up exclusively of their own mothers and sisters.

  A more rational mode of life should be adopted which would include abstinence from all alcoholic dr
inks, from excess in eating and from flesh meat, on the one hand, and recourse to physical labor on the other. I am not speaking of gymnastics, or of any of those occupations which may be fitly described as playing at work; I mean the genuine toil that fatigues. No one need go far in search of proofs that this kind of abstemious living is not merely possible, but far less hurtful to health than excess. Hundreds of instances are known to every one. This is my first contention.

  In the second place, I think that of late years, through various reasons which I need not enter, but among which the above-mentioned laxity of opinion in society and the frequent idealization of the subject in current literature and painting may be mentioned, conjugal infidelity has become more common and is considered less reprehensible. I am of opinion that this is not right. The origin of the evil is twofold. It is due, in the first place, to a natural instinct, and, in the second, to the elevation of this instinct to a place to which it does not rightly belong. This being so, the evil can only be remedied by effecting a change in the views now in vogue about "falling in love" and all that this term implies, by educating men and women at home through family influence and example, and abroad by means of healthy public opinion, to practice that abstinence which morality and Christianity alike enjoin. This is my second contention.

  In the third place I am of opinion that another consequence of the false light in which "falling in love," and what it leads to, are viewed in our society, is that the birth of children has lost its pristine significance, and that modern marriages are conceived less and less from the point of view of the family. I am of opinion that this is not right. This is my third contention.

  In the fourth place, I am of opinion that the children (who in our society are considered an obstacle to enjoyment—an unlucky accident, as it were) are educated not with a view to the problem which they will be one day called on to face and to solve, but solely with an eye to the pleasure which they may be made to yield to their parents. The consequence is, that the children of human beings are brought up for all the world like the young of animals, the chief care of their parents being not to train them to such work as is worthy of men and women, but to increase their weight, or add a cubit to their stature, to make them spruce, sleek, well-fed, and comely. They rig them out in all manner of fantastic costumes, wash them, over-feed them, and refuse to make them work. If the children of the lower orders differ in this last respect from those of the well-to-do classes, the difference is merely formal; they work from sheer necessity, and not because their parents recognize work as a duty. And in over-fed children, as in over-fed animals, sensuality is engendered unnaturally early.