The Kreutzer Sonata, and Other Stories, Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy [good e books to read TXT] 📗

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 drinks, 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