Trains are a queer place to meet. Strangers come together to a close company for a few hours. Sometimes they interact, have lively conversations and when their destinations come with whistles and ringing bells, they are gone for good. So it is easier to bare your soul to a stranger. Perhaps, that is why the old man Pozdnyshev opens up to his fellow travelers and reiterates how he murdered his late wife.

The statement of that crime—the murder of his wife is established at the very beginning of the novel. Then we see the book from his point of view. His narration takes the passengers on a tale of suspicion, jealousy, mistrust, and the philosophy of sexual abstinence.

The Kreutzer Sonata was named after a sonata of the same name by Beethoven. Protagonist Pozdnyshev, then a young man, suspects his wife cheating on him with her piano teacher. Days go by and he becomes more and more delirious with suspicions. One day he overhears them playing the kreutzer sonata together. To Pozdnyshev's ears — it was not music, it was a force of destruction, roaring with terrible might, threatening to wipe the last bit of his happiness.
Quite fitting for it to be the name of the novella. You can listen to it here.

Pozdnyshev starts his tale as if he wants to replace Aesop. Moralizing, and a bit condescending. He pours boiling wrath down the ears of his listeners in the form of massive monologues on relationships among men and women and the condition of sexuality in societies. As if Tolstoy was trying to convey his ideas through the disguise of a book.

Allow me to insert a couple of quotes that I deem relevant.

"But nowadays men declare that they respect women—some relinquish their seats to them or pick up their handkerchiefs, others admit women’s right to hold responsible positions, to take part in government and the like. They do all this, but their view of them is always the same: woman is still the instrument of enjoyment and her body is the means of enjoyment. And she knows all that! It is just the same as slavery."

"Slavery is nothing else than the enjoyment by the few of the compulsory labor of the many. In order for slavery to come to an end, people must stop wanting to take advantage of the compulsory labor of others."

When you think about it, these are not untrue at all. Even with all the waves of feminism, inequality can be seen in almost every corner of the world. Sexism is still very much relevant in the western world where feminists were most active, let alone the poorer parts of the globe.

But we can't cheer for the protagonist just yet as he accuses women of passive/silent retaliation. Which doesn't make much sense to me living in a patriarchal society. He also praises sexual abstinence of both sexes and tries to pin all the woe and evil of humanity on sexual acts and urges. I finally grasp—the character is vindictive, remorseful, and quite fictional. This is why I'm a fervent advocate of reading fiction as I regularly observe how astoundingly powerful it can be! Logic and truth cannot force it into submission. What you cannot explore by yourself, as yourself — you can do it in the name of fiction.

The protagonist, however guilty and remorseful, went through something that is ever so unsettling and hit me hard. Now, he cynically mentions that a married couple deeply in love will lose their mutual affection once they start living under the same roof. The first few years might go swiftly and once the charm clears away, it leaves only spite, hatred, disgust.

I’m not that pessimistic of a guy but this scenario feels too close to reality to ignore as I often see such a case but never consider so in my case — and considering it can be pretty scary. Hating someone you once loved? There can’t be anything worse than that—not even the death of that someone.

I suspect some of the elements were carried from Tolstoy's personal life. He was married and had 13 kids with his wife. Perhaps he borrowed some his marital disputes and coated the novel with it. I don't think my suspicions are entirely baseless as I've seen a similar approach in another novella by him, The Death of Ivan Ilych.

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When The Kreutzer Sonata was first published, they instantly censored it. Which is not surprising considering the topic and how it was expressed. I don't expect 19th-century Tsars to be that liberal.

However, I can disregard almost anything else and focus on one aspect only—it is a brilliantly written novella. Not because of the story (and I haven't really mentioned much of it) — rather how poignant and compelling the prose is. I have never seen anger, desperation, rage, frustration, jealousy forming into letters with such vehemence!

The narrator's tale invoked primordial emotions in me, so real and pressing that when I willingly chose to delve into his emotional pit, to see myself in his shoes, I turned into his accomplice and had to atone for it.
When I finished The Kreutzer Sonata, I remained stagnant, as if thunderstruck — sound of my fast, beating heart was the only thing that bore witness of my being alive.

Rating — 5/5