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On a long train journey across Russia, a man named Pozdnyshev tells his fellow passenger how he came to kill his wife. Jealous of a violinist with whom she…
On a long train journey across Russia, a man named Pozdnyshev tells his fellow passenger how he came to kill his wife. Jealous of a violinist with whom she played Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata, he describes, in a feverish monologue, how he believes physical passion poisoned their marriage from the start, and he argues for chastity even within marriage. The volume also contains four other works by Tolstoy: the folk tale 'Ivan the Fool', 'A Lost Opportunity', the tragic story of a serf, 'Polikushka', and 'The Candle'.
Context and significance
Tolstoy wrote the story in 1889, and the Russian censors banned it; in the United States, in 1890, the Postmaster General barred newspapers printing it from the mails. This translation was published in 1890 by Benjamin Tucker, an American anarchist editor who defended free expression. The story inspired Janáček's first string quartet. Tolstoy's late fiction continues in Master and Man.
About the author
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), born at Yasnaya Polyana and a veteran of the Crimean War, wrote two of the summits of the novel, War and Peace and Anna Karenina.
In later life he preached simplicity and non-violence in The Kingdom of God Is Within You, a book that deeply influenced Gandhi.