Novel of manners? Propaganda pamphlet against society? Confession? Profession of faith? The Kreutzer Sonata is all these. Violent, heart-rending, grotesque, tragic, admirable—it is a powerful book because of its fervent sincerity. Once again, the author has indulged in breast-beating; but this time he has added a final touch of refinement by dragging his wife through the mud with him. lie unhesitatingly offers up to the public the secrets of his periods of rut, his quarrels, his loathing; he flings open their bedroom door. And he knew perfectly well that his readers, who were accustomed to the autobiographical element in his writing, would identify Sonya with the victim, and that some would pity her and others mock her. How was it that he, who professed to be filled with loving kindness for his fellow creatures, who was continually afraid of inadvertently hurting anyone's feelings, did not imagine what an unspeakable humiliation lie would inflict upon his life-partner by publishing this book?
Whether unwittingly or out of conscious cruelty, he did more than merely publish it: he gave the manuscript to her to read and copy in her own hand. On July 4, 1889 he wrote in his diary, "Sonya is copying it and is very much affected by it!" Singular gift for a silver wedding anniversary. She read, cursed, wept. After twenty-five years of preaching to all Russia that woman's most noble calling was marriage and childbirth, how could this man publicly deny his ideal? How dared he tell others to be chaste when, at sixty, he had got her with child for the thirteenth time? She tried to reason with him, but he swelled out his chcst and spoke of his mission on earth, and she bowed to the majesty of the written word.
As soon as it had been copied the book was taken to Moscow, and on October 28, 1889 Koni read it to a small group of writers gathered in the Kuzminsky home; a second reading took place the next day in the editorial offices of the Intermediary; during the night, unpaid scribes made copies of the text and in less than a week nearly eight hundred lithographed copies were circulating in St. Petersburg; their numbers doubled, tripled, invaded the provinces. Before the book was even printed, before the censor had given its decision, the case was being hotly debated all over Russia. According to Strakhov, people no longer greeted each other in the street with "How are you?" but with "Have you read The Kreutzer Sonata?" Some hailed it as a work of genius, others as a scandal; the Church fulminated, and so did the partisans of free love, and single women, and mothers! ... A large number of articles appeared and even literary works, the most noteworthy of which is a story by Leskov, On "The Kreutzer Sonata."
In the midst of this turmoil, Sonya felt as though waves of mud were spattering her from head to foot. "Everyone feels sorry for me," she wrote, "from the emperor on down. . . . But why consult the opinions of others? Deep in my own heart, I always felt that the book was directed against me, mutilated me and humiliated me in the eyes of the whole world, and was destroying even, thing we had preserved of love for one another. And yet never once in my entire married life have I made a single gesture or given a single glance for which I need feel guilty toward my husband."
Her sole obsession now was not to become pregnant again. What a howl of derision would rise from the public then! For, need it be said, after stigmatizing all fornicators Tolstoy had been unable to ab stain himself. Upon leaving his wife's arms, he wrote in his diary, "And what if another baby came? How ashamed I should be, especially in front of my children! 'Ihey will compare the date [of conception! with that of publication [of The Kreutzer Sonata]."1- To remove temptation, lie wanted Sonya to sleep alone. But she refused. So he must rely on his own willpower. When he readied out for her, she had mingled feelings of triumph and disgust. "The coldness and severity melted," she wrote, "and the end was the same as always! . . ." And, "He is being charming, cheerful and affectionate again. It is, alas, always for the same reason. If those who have read and are reading The Kreutzer Sonata could have one glimpse of Lyovoehka's love life, if they could sec what makes him so gay and kind, they would hurl their idol down from the pedestal they have put him on."13
At the beginning of 1890 the censor Still had not announced its decision. Pobyedonostsev wrote, "A powerful work. If I ask myself whether I must condemn it for immorality, I cannot bring myself to say I should."14 Fmpcror Alexander III found it a magnificent work, but the empress was shocked. I11 the end, under pressure from ecclesiastical circles, the minister of the interior forbade the publication of The Kreutzer Sonata both as a separate volume and in the Collected Works.
Tolstoy was not unduly incensed by this. He had said what be wanted to say. It was no more concern of his whether the book was printed or circulated in manuscript form. He was more disturbed, however, by the criticism he was receiving from a large body of readers. His mail had tripled. From all sides strangers were begging him to tell them whether he really desired the extinction of the human race. Chertkov himself was pestering the master: "In its present form," he wrote to Tolstoy, "this book [The Kreutzer Sonata] can only sow doubts in the public mind and fail to clear up its uncertainties, whereas you might have settled them by emphasizing a few Christian concepts."
Goaded by all this misinterpretation, Tolstoy undertook to write an afterword to the book. On a much smaller scale, it gave him as much trouble as the novel itself. How could Chertkov, who knew his master so well, imagine that in elucidating his thesis he would tone it down? Once he was well in his stride, Tolstoy made straight for the goal, mowing down everything in his way. Starting with the idea that in order to live a Christian life it was necessary to dominate the appetites of the flesh, his afterword recommended physical exercise, which diverted the mind from impure thoughts, and criticized gastronomy, which was conducive to sensuality. Continence, he affirmed, wras indispensable outside marriage and desirable within. Besides, marriage was not a creation of Jesus but an invention of the Church. "There has never been and never can be a Christian marriage, just as there never has been and never can be a Christian religious ritual or Christian professors of Christian fathers or Christian property or a Christian army, court or state."
While he was pounding out this diatribe, Sonya again bccame terrified of having been fecundated by her champion of sterility. "I am very much afraid I am pregnant again," she wrote on December 25, 1890. "Everyone will hear of this ignominy and they will all be maliciously repeating the joke that is making the rounds in Moscow, 'That is the real postscript to The Kreutzer Sonata.'"
She felt she needed to understand her husband better, and decided to recopy the diaries he had kept in his bachelor days. Some of the pages still offended her as they had done when she first read them. "Today I was copying Lyovochka's diaries," she wrote, "and stopped where he says, 'Love does not exist, there is only the body's need of physical communion and the reason's need for a companion in life.' Had I seen that sentence twenty-nine years ago, I would never have married him."18 "The conncction between those old notes in Lyovochka's diary and The Kreutzer Sonata is so obvious! And I am the fly buzzing in the spider's web and the spider is sucking my blood."10
When Lyovochka found out that she was ferreting about in his papers, he became angry. "Why stir up all that old trash?" he said.
She retorted, with vindictive glee, "Suffer for it, siuce you've lived so badlyl" Then he forbade her to continue copying. "I am very much annoyed," wrote Sonya, "because I had already finished a large part of it and had only a little more to do in the notebook I was working on. But I shall continue in secret, and I shall finish, whatever happens."17 She had lost all respect for him, she laughed at his virtuous poses, she even dared to question the virtues of a new vegetarian diet he had found in a German review: "No doubt the person who advocates this diet follows it as closely as Lyovochka, who preaches chastity in The Kreutzer Sonata and yet behaves like . . "18