The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
“And there in the hall, knowing that my wife heard me, I insisted that
he should come that very evening with his violin. He promised me, and
went away. In the evening he arrived with his violin, and they played
together. But for a long time things did not go well; we had not the
necessary music, and that which we had my wife could not play at sight.
I amused myself with their difficulties. I aided them, I made
proposals, and they finally executed a few pieces,—songs without words,
and a little sonata by Mozart. He played in a marvellous manner. He had
what is called the energetic and tender tone. As for difficulties,
there were none for him. Scarcely had he begun to play, when his face
changed. He became serious, and much more sympathetic. He was, it is
needless to say, much stronger than my wife. He helped her, he advised
her simply and naturally, and at the same time played his game with
courtesy. My wife seemed interested only in the music. She was very
simple and agreeable. Throughout the evening I feigned, not only for
the others, but for myself, an interest solely in the music. Really, I
was continually tortured by jealousy. From the first minute that the
musician’s eyes met those of my wife, I saw that he did not regard her
as a disagreeable woman, with whom on occasion it would be unpleasant
to enter into intimate relations.
“If I had been pure, I should not have dreamed of what he might think
of her. But I looked at women, and that is why I understood him and was
in torture. I was in torture, especially because I was sure that toward
me she had no other feeling than of perpetual irritation, sometimes
interrupted by the customary sensuality, and that this man,—thanks to
his external elegance and his novelty, and, above all, thanks to his
unquestionably remarkable talent, thanks to the attraction exercised
under the influence of music, thanks to the impression that music
produces upon nervous natures,—this man would not only please, but
would inevitably, and without difficulty, subjugate and conquer her,
and do with her as he liked.
“I could not help seeing this. I could not help suffering, or keep from
being jealous. And I was jealous, and I suffered, and in spite of that,
and perhaps even because of that, an unknown force, in spite of my
will, impelled me to be not only polite, but more than polite, amiable.
I cannot say whether I did it for my wife, or to show him that I did
not fear _him_, or to deceive myself; but from my first relations with
him I could not be at my ease. I was obliged, that I might not give way
to a desire to kill him immediately, to ‘caress’ him. I filled his
glass at the table, I grew enthusiastic over his playing, I talked to
him with an extremely amiable smile, and I invited him to dinner the
following Sunday, and to play again. I told him that I would invite
some of my acquaintances, lovers of his art, to hear him.
“Two or three days later I was entering my house, in conversation with
a friend, when in the hall I suddenly felt something as heavy as a
stone weighing on my heart, and I could not account for it. And it was
this, it was this: in passing through the hall, I had noticed something
which reminded me of _him_. Not until I reached my study did I realize
what it was, and I returned to the hall to verify my conjecture. Yes, I
was not mistaken. It was his overcoat (everything that belonged to him,
I, without realizing it, had observed with extraordinary attention). I
questioned the servant. That was it. He had come. “I passed near the
parlor, through my children’s study-room. Lise, my daughter, was
sitting before a book, and the old nurse, with my youngest child, was
beside the table, turning the cover of something or other. In the
parlor I heard a slow _arpeggio_, and his voice, deadened, and a denial
from her. She said: ‘No, no! There is something else!’ And it seemed to
me that some one was purposely deadening the words by the aid of the
piano.
“My God! How my heart leaped! What were my imaginations! When I
remember the beast that lived in me at that moment, I am seized with
fright. My heart was first compressed, then stopped, and then began to
beat like a hammer. The principal feeling, as in every bad feeling, was
pity for myself. ‘Before the children, before the old nurse,’ thought
I, ‘she dishonors me. I will go away. I can endure it no longer. God
knows what I should do if. . . . But I must go in.’
“The old nurse raised her eyes to mine, as if she understood, and
advised me to keep a sharp watch. ‘I must go in,’ I said to myself,
and, without knowing what I did, I opened the door. He was sitting at
the piano and making _arpeggios_ with his long, white, curved fingers.
She was standing in the angle of the grand piano, before the open
score. She saw or heard me first, and raised her eyes to mine. Was she
stunned, was she pretending not to be frightened, or was she really not
frightened at all? In any case, she did not tremble, she did not stir.
She blushed, but only a little later.
“‘How glad I am that you have come! We have not decided what we will
play Sunday,’ said she, in a tone that she would not have had if she
had been alone with me.
“This tone, and the way in which she said ‘we’ in speaking of herself
and of him, revolted me. I saluted him silently. He shook hands with me
directly, with a smile that seemed to me full of mockery. He explained
to me that he had brought some scores, in order to prepare for the
Sunday concert, and that they were not in accord as to the piece to
choose,—whether difficult, classic things, notably a sonata by
Beethoven, or lighter pieces.
“And as he spoke, he looked at me. It was all so natural, so simple,
that there was absolutely nothing to be said against it. And at the
same time I saw, I was sure, that it was false, that they were in a
conspiracy to deceive me.
“One of the most torturing situations for the jealous (and in our
social life everybody is jealous) are those social conditions which
allow a very great and dangerous intimacy between a man and a woman
under certain pretexts. One must make himself the laughing stock of
everybody, if he desires to prevent associations in the ball-room, the
intimacy of doctors with their patients, the familiarity of art
occupations, and especially of music. In order that people may occupy
themselves together with the noblest art, music, a certain intimacy is
necessary, in which there is nothing blameworthy. Only a jealous fool
of a husband can have anything to say against it. A husband should not
have such thoughts, and especially should not thrust his nose into
these affairs, or prevent them. And yet, everybody knows that precisely
in these occupations, especially in music, many adulteries originate in
our society.
“I had evidently embarrassed them, because for some time I was unable
to say anything. I was like a bottle suddenly turned upside down, from
which the water does not run because it is too full. I wanted to insult
the man, and to drive him away, but I could do nothing of the kind. On
the contrary, I felt that I was disturbing them, and that it was my
fault. I made a presence of approving everything, this time also,
thanks to that strange feeling that forced me to treat him the more
amiably in proportion as his presence was more painful to me. I said
that I trusted to his taste, and I advised my wife to do the same. He
remained just as long as it was necessary in order to efface the
unpleasant impression of my abrupt entrance with a frightened face. He
went away with an air of satisfaction at the conclusions arrived at. As
for me, I was perfectly sure that, in comparison with that which
preoccupied them, the question of music was indifferent to them. I
accompanied him with especial courtesy to the hall (how can one help
accompanying a man who has come to disturb your tranquillity and ruin
the happiness of the entire family?), and I shook his white, soft hand
with fervent amiability.”
CHAPTER XXII.
“All that day I did not speak to my wife. I could not. Her proximity
excited such hatred that I feared myself. At the table she asked me, in
presence of the children, when I was to start upon a journey. I was to
go the following week to an assembly of the Zemstvo, in a neighboring
locality. I named the date. She asked me if I would need anything for
the journey. I did not answer. I sat silent at the table, and silently
I retired to my study. In those last days she never entered my study,
especially at that hour. Suddenly I heard her steps, her walk, and then
a terribly base idea entered my head that, like the wife of Uri, she
wished to conceal a fault already committed, and that it was for this
reason that she came to see me at this unseasonable hour. ‘Is it
possible,’ thought I, ‘that she is coming to see me?’ On hearing her
step as it approached: ‘If it is to see me that she is coming, then I
am right.’
“An inexpressible hatred invaded my soul. The steps drew nearer, and
nearer, and nearer yet. Would she pass by and go on to the other room?
No, the hinges creaked, and at the door her tall, graceful, languid
figure appeared. In her face, in her eyes, a timidity, an insinuating
expression, which she tried to hide, but which I saw, and of which I
understood the meaning. I came near suffocating, such were my efforts
to hold my breath, and, continuing to look at her, I took my cigarette,
and lighted it.
“‘What does this mean? One comes to talk with you, and you go to
smoking.’
“And she sat down beside me on the sofa, resting against my shoulder. I
recoiled, that I might not touch her.
“‘I see that you are displeased with what I wish to play on Sunday,’
said she.
“‘I am not at all displeased,’ said I.
“‘Can I not see?’
“‘Well, I congratulate you on your clairvoyance. Only to you every
baseness is agreeable, and I abhor it.’
“‘If you are going to swear like a trooper, I am going away.’
“‘Then go away. Only know that, if the honor of the family is nothing
to you, to me it is dear. As for you, the devil take you!’
“‘What! What is the matter?’
“‘Go away, in the name of God.’
“But she did not go away. Was she pretending not to understand, or did
she really not understand what I meant? But she was offended and became
angry.
“‘You have become absolutely impossible,’ she began, or some such
phrase as that regarding my character, trying, as usual, to give me as
much pain as possible. ‘After what you have done to my sister (she
referred to an incident with her sister, in which, beside myself, I had
uttered brutalities; she knew that that tortured me, and tried to touch
me in that tender spot) nothing will astonish me.’
“‘Yes, offended, humiliated, and dishonored, and after that to hold me
still responsible,’ thought I, and suddenly a rage, such a hatred
invaded me as I do not remember to have ever felt before. For the first
time I desired to express this hatred physically. I leaped upon her,
but at the same moment I understood my condition, and I asked myself
whether it would be well for me to abandon myself to my fury. And I
answered myself that it would be well, that it would frighten her, and,
instead of resisting, I lashed and spurred myself on, and was glad to
feel my anger boiling more and more fiercely.
“‘Go away, or I will kill you!’ I cried, purposely, with a frightful
voice, and I grasped her by the arm. She did not go away. Then I
twisted her arm, and pushed her away violently.
“‘What is the matter with you? Come to your senses!’ she shrieked.
“‘Go away,’ roared I, louder than ever, rolling my eyes wildly. ‘It
takes you to put me in such a fury. I do not answer for myself! Go
away!’
“In abandoning myself to my anger, I became steeped in it, and I wanted