The Kreutzer Sonata (Tolstoy)
Short summary
Russian Empire, late 19th century. On a train journey, passengers discussed marriage and love. A nervous gray-haired man suddenly revealed he was Pózdnyshev, who had murdered his wife.
Pózdnyshev told his story to a fellow passenger. He described how society corrupted him from age fifteen when he lost his virginity in a brothel. He lived a debauched life but sought a pure wife. He married a landowner's daughter from Penza, believing he loved her.
Their honeymoon revealed the truth: their relationship was based on sensuality, not love. They lived in cycles of passion and hatred, quarreling constantly. Five children were born, but family life brought only torment. When doctors taught his wife to avoid pregnancy, she became more attractive and began seeking new experiences.
A young violinist named Trukhachévski entered their lives. He played music with Pózdnyshev's wife, performing Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata together.
Pózdnyshev's jealousy intensified. When away on business, he received a letter mentioning Trukhachévski's visit. Returning home unexpectedly, he found them together having a late meal. In a rage, he attacked with a dagger.
I knew what I was doing every second... I knew I was hitting below the ribs and that the dagger would enter. At the moment I did it I knew I was doing an awful thing.
Detailed summary by chapters
Chapter titles are editorial.
Biblical epigraphs on marriage and lust
The novella opened with two biblical epigraphs from Matthew, addressing lust and the difficulties of marriage.
Chapter 1. Train passengers and the mysterious gray-haired man
On an early spring train journey, several passengers traveled together in one carriage. Among them was a plain, smoking lady in mannish attire, a talkative lawyer about forty years old with neat appearance, and a peculiar gray-haired man who kept to himself.
The gray-haired man had prematurely grey curly hair, glittering eyes that moved rapidly, and made strange sounds like clearing his throat. He avoided conversation with fellow passengers, reading or looking out the window instead. His nervous manner and abrupt movements made him stand out among the travelers.
Chapter 2. Debate about marriage, love, and womens nature
When the train stopped at a station, new passengers entered, including an old tradesman who began discussing marriage with a clerk. The tradesman represented traditional views, arguing that women should fear their husbands and that modern education had corrupted marriage.
The lady and lawyer disagreed, advocating for love-based marriages and women's rights. Their heated discussion about marriage, divorce, and women's nature continued until the tradesman departed.
Chapter 3. Pozdnyshev reveals he killed his wife
The gray-haired man suddenly interrupted the conversation about love, questioning what constituted true love. When pressed, he revealed his identity as Pózdnyshev, the man who had killed his wife in a famous case. The other passengers fell silent, shocked by this revelation.
Chapter 4. Pozdnyshevs youth and moral corruption
Pózdnyshev began telling his story, explaining how his moral corruption started at age fifteen when his brother's university friend took him to a brothel. He described how society normalized such behavior, with doctors and elders presenting debauchery as healthy and natural for young men.
I was not a seducer, had no unnatural tastes, did not make that the chief purpose of my life... but I practiced debauchery in a steady, decent way for health's sake.
This first experience destroyed his natural relationship with women forever, turning him into what he called a libertine - a man perverted by multiple sexual encounters who could never have pure relations with women again.
Chapter 5. Debauchery and the double standard of society
Pózdnyshev condemned the hypocrisy of society, where debauched men were welcomed in drawing rooms while pure young women were expected to marry them. He described how men like himself, with hundreds of crimes against women on their souls, appeared as emblems of purity in evening dress.
Real debauchery lies precisely in freeing oneself from moral relations with a woman with whom you have physical intimacy. And such emancipation I regarded as a merit.
He criticized how parents enthusiastically gave their daughters to diseased men if they were wealthy, while maintaining the pretense that such profligacy didn't exist.
Chapter 6. Womens coquetry and the marriage market
Despite his debauchery, Pózdnyshev sought a pure wife. He found a landowner's daughter from Penza and decided she was worthy of him. He explained how women instinctively knew that men wanted their bodies above all else, using dress and appearance to attract them.
Chapter 7. Falling in love with external beauty
It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness. A handsome woman talks nonsense, you listen and hear not nonsense but cleverness.
Chapter 8. Marriage as a trap for both sexes
Pózdnyshev described modern marriage arrangements as traps, comparing them unfavorably to traditional arranged marriages. He criticized how maidens waited like goods in a bazaar while men walked around choosing, creating a system of deception and false courtship rituals.
Chapter 9. Womens domination through sensuality
He argued that women, deprived of equal rights in sexual matters, gained power through sensuality. Like Jews dominated through finance, women enslaved men through their bodies, creating a system where millions labored to satisfy women's luxurious demands and caprices.
Chapter 10. Engagement and self-deception
During his engagement, Pózdnyshev prided himself on marrying for love rather than money and planning monogamy. However, conversations with his fiancée were difficult and artificial, filled with awkward silences. Their relationship was based on sensuality rather than genuine spiritual connection.
Chapter 11. The honeymoons shameful reality
Pózdnyshev compared his honeymoon to a disappointing freak show, describing it as shameful, repulsive, and intolerably dull. He argued that physical love was unnatural, pointing out that unspoiled girls always hated it initially. When challenged about human reproduction, he philosophized that humanity's aim should be spiritual perfection, not endless breeding.
He believed that if humanity achieved its spiritual goals through continence and purity, physical love would no longer be necessary, and the human race would naturally come to its intended end.
Chapter 12. The cycle of passion and hatred
The honeymoon quickly revealed the true nature of their relationship. After brief periods of sensuality came longer periods of cold hostility and quarrels over trivial matters. Pózdnyshev realized their reconciliations were merely renewed sensuality masking fundamental incompatibility.
We were like two convicts hating each other and chained together, poisoning one another's lives and trying not to see it.
He described how they found excuses for quarrels and reconciliations, living in a perpetual cycle of animosity and artificial passion that made genuine communication impossible.
Chapter 13. Physical love as animal behavior
Pózdnyshev argued that their hatred stemmed from their animal nature overpowering their human nature. He claimed that physical love violated natural law, forcing women to be mistresses to their husbands even during pregnancy and nursing, leading to hysteria and nervous disorders.
That hatred was nothing but the mutual hatred of accomplices in a crime—both for the incitement to the crime and for the part taken in it.
He blamed doctors for encouraging this unnatural lifestyle and criticized how men's supposed needs were prioritized over women's health and natural maternal functions.
Chapter 14. Womens education and societys hypocrisy
Pózdnyshev criticized women's education, arguing that it would never change as long as men viewed women primarily as instruments of pleasure. He claimed that true emancipation required changing men's attitudes, not just giving women legal rights or university education.
He argued that as long as society valued women mainly for their ability to attract men, even educated women would focus on beauty and seduction rather than genuine intellectual or moral development.
Chapter 15. Jealousy and the harmful role of doctors
When his wife couldn't nurse their first child due to doctors' orders, Pózdnyshev's jealousy intensified. He blamed doctors for interfering with natural processes and corrupting society with materialistic views that denied moral responsibility for one's actions.
Chapter 16. Children as torment rather than blessing
Pózdnyshev described how children became a source of torment rather than joy. His wife lived in constant anxiety about their health, following ever-changing medical advice and fearing every illness. Unlike animals who acted on instinct, educated mothers suffered from knowing too much about potential dangers.
The children became weapons in their parents' conflicts, with each parent using them against the other. The constant medical crises and parental disputes poisoned family life, making normal existence impossible.
Chapter 17. Growing hostility and mutual hatred
By their fourth year of marriage, Pózdnyshev and his wife could no longer communicate normally. They disagreed on everything beforehand, maintaining their positions out of stubbornness rather than conviction. Their conversations were limited to practical necessities, and any deviation led to bitter quarrels.
Both occupied themselves frantically with work to avoid confronting their misery, not realizing that ninety-nine percent of married couples lived in similar hell.
Chapter 18. Wifes transformation after avoiding pregnancy
When doctors taught his wife to avoid pregnancy, she became physically more attractive and developed a provocative beauty. Free from the burden of constant childbearing, she began paying more attention to her appearance and pleasures, awakening to desires she had forgotten during years of motherhood.
Chapter 19. Wife becomes dangerously attractive
His wife's renewed attractiveness and freedom from maternal duties made her dangerous in Pózdnyshev's eyes. She began to look about expectantly, and he sensed she was seeking new love. She spoke carelessly about the burdens of motherhood and showed renewed interest in her piano playing and personal accomplishments.
Pózdnyshev became frightened of women's power over men, comparing elegantly dressed women to dangerous traps that should be regulated like gambling. He felt that such displays of sensuality disturbed social tranquility.
Chapter 20. A typical violent quarrel
Pózdnyshev described a typical quarrel that began over a trivial matter - whether a dog had won a medal or honorable mention. Such disputes escalated rapidly into violent confrontations where each spouse deliberately hurt the other in their most sensitive areas.
During one such quarrel, his wife threatened to leave and took poison, leading to a temporary reconciliation. These cycles of violence, threats, and reconciliation became their normal pattern, with each incident more severe than the last.
Chapter 21. Trukhachevsky the musician enters their lives
A musician named Trukhachévski appeared in their lives. He was a semi-professional violinist, the youngest son of a ruined landowner who had been educated in Paris. Despite his questionable character, he was considered handsome by women, with almond-shaped eyes, red lips, and fashionable appearance.
From their first meeting, Pózdnyshev sensed the mutual attraction between Trukhachévski and his wife. Despite his jealousy, or perhaps because of it, he found himself unable to behave naturally, instead becoming overly polite and inviting the musician to play with his wife.
Chapter 22. Musical evening and rising jealousy
During their first musical evening, Pózdnyshev watched his wife and Trukhachévski play together, tormented by jealousy yet unable to stop the arrangement. He observed their mutual attraction and felt certain they were asking each other whether they might proceed with their affair.
Despite his torment, he continued to invite the musician, giving him expensive wines and treating him with exaggerated courtesy to mask his desire to kill him.
Chapter 23. The Kreutzer Sonata performance and its dangerous power
They performed Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata, which had a profound and disturbing effect on Pózdnyshev. He described music as a dangerous force that transported listeners into the composer's mental state without providing any outlet for the emotions it aroused.
Music carries me immediately and directly into the mental condition in which the man was who composed it... but for me—none at all. That is why music only agitates.
The sonata revealed new feelings and possibilities to him, making everyone appear in a different light. He felt lighthearted and cheerful, not attributing any dangerous meaning to his wife's radiant expression and the intimate connection between the musicians.
Chapter 24. Departure and the suspicious letter
Pózdnyshev left for district meetings in a tranquil mood. Two days later, he received a letter from his wife mentioning that Trukhachévski had called with promised music and offered to play again, though she had refused. The casual mention disturbed him, as he thought the musician had taken final leave.
Chapter 25. The tortured train journey home
During the eight-hour train journey home, Pózdnyshev's imagination painted vivid pictures of his wife's infidelity. He became convinced that everything had happened between them, recalling their faces after the Kreutzer Sonata performance and seeing signs he had previously missed.
He tortured himself with detailed fantasies of their affair, unable to control his thoughts. The journey became a hell of jealousy and rage, with his conviction of her guilt growing stronger with each imagined scene.
His suffering was intensified by his sense of ownership over his wife's body and his powerlessness to control it. He felt she could dispose of herself as she pleased, while he could do nothing to either her or her lover.
Chapter 26. Arrival home and discovery
Arriving home after midnight, Pózdnyshev found lights still on in their flat. The footman confirmed that Trukhachévski was there, and Pózdnyshev felt his worst fears confirmed. He sent the servant away and prepared to catch them together, taking a curved Damascus dagger from the wall.
He crept through the house, passing the sleeping children and nurse, overwhelmed by self-pity and rage. In his study, he sobbed over his ruined life and marriage, imagining his wife's shameless betrayal in the next room to their children.
Steeling himself for action, he took off his boots and overcoat, gripped the dagger, and approached the room where he could hear voices and the sound of eating. His fury overcame all other considerations as he prepared to act.
Chapter 27. The murder
Pózdnyshev burst into the room where his wife and Trukhachévski were having a late meal. Their faces showed unmistakable terror, and he saw what he interpreted as regret at being interrupted. Trukhachévski tried to maintain normalcy, claiming they had been making music.
When Pózdnyshev rushed at his wife with the dagger, Trukhachévski grabbed his arm and shouted for help, then fled under the piano and out the door. His wife hung on Pózdnyshev's arm, trying to stop him, but her touch only inflamed his rage further.
They asked me at the trial with what and how I killed her. Fools! They thought I killed her with a knife, on the 5th of October. It was not then I killed her, but much earlier.
He struck her below the ribs with the dagger, remembering every detail with extraordinary clarity. She tried to hold back the blade but couldn't prevent it from entering. He immediately pulled it out, realizing the horror of what he had done, but it was too late to remedy.
Chapter 28. Wifes death and final reflections
His wife died that same day after hours of delirium. Even dying, she maintained her hatred of him and refused to forgive. Pózdnyshev spent eleven months in prison awaiting trial, during which he came to understand the true nature of his crime and his life.
Only when I saw her dead face did I understand all that I had done. I realized that I, I, had killed her; that it was my doing that she... had now become motionless, waxen, and cold.
The children were taken by relatives who wouldn't trust them to him. As the train reached its destination, Pózdnyshev concluded his story, asking for forgiveness and covering himself with his plaid, a broken man haunted by the consequences of jealousy and the destructive nature of physical passion.