Source extract (modern orthography, --choice=reg):
docs/research/1887-1889-the-kreutzer-sonata/extracts/v27_007_078_Krejtserova_sonata.txt
(~26k words; complete novella; 28 chapter markers, I–XXVIII).
All Russian below is copied character-for-character from that extract file. English renderings are labelled “(working English)” and are this agent’s working translations, not a published edition.
1. Thematic map
The novella is a frame narrative. An unnamed first-person traveller (the framing-narrator, “я”) rides a train across two days and nights. He overhears a carriage debate about love and marriage among fellow passengers — an emancipation-minded smoking lady, a liberal lawyer, an Old-Testament-minded merchant, a shop-clerk. A grey-haired, nervous man with unnaturally glittering eyes, who has been avoiding everyone, breaks in. He is Pozdnyshev (Позднышев), and he announces himself as the man who killed his wife (ch. II, line 201). The bulk of the book is his night-long confession, delivered to the framing-narrator in a darkening then dawning carriage, fuelled by very strong tea; the frame returns at the very end when the narrator alights.
The device matters: everything Pozdnyshev argues reaches the reader at one remove, as the monologue of a self-declared murderer in an agitated state, transcribed by a listener who periodically notes Pozdnyshev’s physical condition (see §3).
Chapter-level beats (chapter markers as in the extract):
- I (lines 17–119) — Train frame established. Carriage debate on marriage, divorce, love. The merchant: woman is “утлый сосуд” / must live in “страх”; the lady: marriage without love is no marriage. Pozdnyshev listens, emits his odd half-laugh sounds.
- II (121–209) — Pozdnyshev intervenes, demands a definition of “love,” argues no preference lasts; reveals his identity as the wife-killer. The other passengers withdraw.
- III (235–255) — Alone with the narrator, he offers to tell “how I was led by this very love to what happened to me.” Opens with his pre-marriage life: landowner, “кандидат университета,” debauched “как все.”
- IV (257–271) — His own corruption from age ~15–16; “разврат” defined not as physical act but as the freeing of oneself from moral relation to a woman; the institutional/medical sanctioning of vice; becoming a “блудник.”
- V (273–289) — Society’s hypocrisy; the cleaned-up debauchee at the ball; courtship; showing his fiancée his diary.
- VI (293–299) — Mothers’ complicity; the thesis that “high” love depends on physical proximity and dress; high-society women equated with prostitutes.
- VII–VIII (301–313) — Diet and idleness as systematic inflammation of lust; the “spasitelny klapan” (safety-valve) image; marriage-markets as traps (“капканы”).
- IX (315–329) — The “power of women” thesis: women, degraded to objects of sensuality, retaliate by ruling through that sensuality; dress as a public danger.
- X–XI (331–339) — His own courtship and the “хваленый медовый месяц”; marriage as the licensed sale of an innocent girl to a debauchee.
- XII (375–381) — The first quarrels; the abyss revealed once sensuality lapses; quarrel-cycle as the couple’s real relation. Node (a)’s doctrinal core sits here and in XI.
- XIII–XIV (383–401) — “Love” as animal, shameful; jealousy begins; the long indictment of doctors and of the woman’s impossible biological position; “Зачем ему продолжаться, роду-то человеческому?”
- XV–XVII (421–463) — Jealousy; children as both the only restraint on his jealousy and a new field of war; the spouses as “два ненавидящих друг друга колодника.”
- XVIII (491–501) — Move to the city; wife stops bearing children (contraception via doctors); her renewed, “вызывающая красота”; his fear.
- XIX–XXI (503–557) — Trukhachevsky the violinist enters; portrait; Pozdnyshev’s compulsion to draw him near; the suicide-attempt quarrel (opium).
- XXII–XXIII (587–663) — The music evenings; the Sunday concert; the Kreutzer Sonata Presto. Node (b).
- XXIV–XXVI (665–685) — He leaves for the district, gets the wife’s letter, the eight-hour train journey of escalating jealous fantasy; “Это было полное сумасшествие!”
- XXVII (717–773) — Return home at night; the dagger; the murder. Node (c).
- XXVIII (775–815) — The dying wife; her refusal to confess “guilt”; “Прости меня”; her death; prison; the frame-narrator alights at dawn.
2. The three pivotal nodes (verbatim)
(a) Pozdnyshev’s doctrine of sex & marriage — chapters XI–XII (with IX, X)
Three verbatim fragments carry the doctrine: the abstinence/chastity ideal in his own mouth, marriage as licensed sale, and woman as instrument.
(a-i) Sexual passion as evil; the Gospel turned against one’s own wife — chapter XI (line 373):
Половая страсть, как бы она ни была обставлена, есть зло, страшное зло, с которым надо бороться, а не поощрять, как у нас. Слова Евангелия о том, что смотрящий на женщину с вожделением уже прелюбодействовал с нею, относятся не к одним чужим женам, а именно — и главное — к своей жене.
(working English) “Sexual passion, however it is arranged, is an evil, a terrible evil, which must be fought, not encouraged as it is among us. The words of the Gospel — that he who looks on a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her — apply not only to other men’s wives, but precisely — and above all — to one’s own wife.”
This is the abstinence/chastity ideal as Pozdnyshev states it: the carnal is not a regrettable necessity but an evil to be combated; the chastity standard is applied even inside marriage. Compare the abstinence ideal earlier (ch. XI, line 365): “а идеал добра, достигаемый воздержанием и чистотою” — “but the ideal of good, attained through abstinence and purity” — and his approval of the Shakers’ position (line 371–373).
(a-ii) Marriage as the sale of an innocent girl — chapter X (line 335):
Выходит что-то в роде продажи. Развратнику продают невинную девушку и обставляют эту продажу известными формальностями.
(working English) “It turns out to be something like a sale. An innocent girl is sold to a debauchee, and this sale is dressed up with certain formalities.”
(a-iii) The objectification of women — chapter XIV (line 409):
Она орудие наслаждения. Тело ее есть средство наслаждения.
(working English) “She is an instrument of pleasure. Her body is a means of pleasure.”
In context (line 409) Pozdnyshev frames this as an indictment of how “мужчина смотрит на женщину” — the male view he says persists unchanged beneath chivalry, “respect,” and emancipation alike, which he likens to slavery: “Рабство женщины ведь только в том, что люди желают и считают очень хорошим пользоваться ею как орудием наслаждения.” (working English: “The enslavement of woman lies only in this — that people desire, and think it very good, to use her as an instrument of pleasure.”)
Accuracy note (both directions): Pozdnyshev’s target throughout is male sensuality and the social order that licenses it — he indicts himself (“свинья я был ужасная,” “мое свинство”), the doctors, the marriage-market, and his own class — as much as he indicts women’s complicity. The argument is harsh toward women (the “властвованье женщин” thesis, ch. IX, line 317) but is built as a condemnation of objectification, not a celebration of it; rendering it merely as “misogyny” or merely as “moral idealism” both flatten the text.
(b) The music passage — chapter XXIII (line 651)
Они играли Крейцерову сонату Бетховена. Знаете ли вы первое престо? Знаете?! — вскрикнул он. — У!... Страшная вещь эта соната. Именно эта часть. И вообще страшная вещь музыка. Что это такое? Я не понимаю. Что такое музыка? Что она делает? И зачем она делает то, что она делает? Говорят, музыка действует возвышающим душу образом — вздор, неправда! Она действует, страшно действует, я говорю про себя, но вовсе не возвышающим душу образом. Она действует ни возвышающим ни принижающим душу образом, а раздражающим душу образом. Как вам сказать? Музыка заставляет меня забывать себя, мое истинное положение, она переносит меня в какое-то другое, не свое положение: мне под влиянием музыки кажется, что я чувствую то, чего я, собственно, не чувствую, что я понимаю то, чего не понимаю, что могу то, чего не могу.
(working English) “They played Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata. Do you know the first Presto? Do you?! — he cried out. — Ugh!... A frightful thing, that sonata. That movement in particular. And music in general is a frightful thing. What is it? I don’t understand. What is music? What does it do? And why does it do what it does? They say music acts on the soul in an elevating way — nonsense, untrue! It acts, it acts frightfully — I speak for myself — but not in any elevating way at all. It acts neither in an elevating nor in a degrading way on the soul, but in an irritating [provoking] way. How shall I put it? Music makes me forget myself, my true position; it transports me into some other state not my own: under the influence of music it seems to me that I feel what I do not really feel, that I understand what I do not understand, that I can do what I cannot do.”
His theory continues (line 653) that music acts “как зевота, как смех” (like a yawn, like laughter) — involuntarily — and “сразу, непосредственно переносит меня в то душевное состояние, в котором находился тот, кто писал музыку,” fusing the listener with the composer’s state without supplying the act that state demands; hence music “только раздражает, не кончает” and is, in the wrong hands, a hypnotic weapon (“страшное средство в руках кого попало,” line 657). He explicitly ties the Presto’s effect to the murder’s possibility: “мне как будто открылись совсем новые ... чувства, новые возможности” (line 657).
(c) The murder — chapter XXVII (line 743)
— Не лги, мерзавка! — завопил я и левой рукой схватил ее за руку, но она вырвалась. Тогда всё-таки я, не выпуская кинжала, схватил ее левой рукой за горло, опрокинул навзничь и стал душить. Какая жесткая шея была... Она схватилась обеими руками за мои руки, отдирая их от горла, и я как будто этого-то и ждал, изо всех сил ударил ее кинжалом в левый бок, ниже ребер.
(working English) “‘Don’t lie, you wretch!’ — I screamed, and with my left hand I seized her by the arm, but she tore free. Then all the same, without letting go of the dagger, I seized her by the throat with my left hand, threw her over backwards, and began to strangle her. What a hard neck it was... She grasped my hands with both of hers, tearing them from her throat, and as if this were the very thing I had been waiting for, I struck her with all my strength with the dagger in the left side, below the ribs.”
Continuation (line 745): he insists the claim that a man in a fit of rage does not remember his acts is “вздор, неправда” — “I remembered everything and not for a second stopped remembering.” He felt “мгновенное противодействие корсета и еще чего-то и потом погружение ножа в мягкое” (the momentary resistance of the corset and then the plunging of the knife into something soft). The wife dies by midday (line 799); he is acquitted (ch. XIX, line 523: acquitted as a deceived husband defending his honour — a reading he rejects).
3. The marquee question — in-text signals only (evidence, not a verdict)
How far does the novella itself signal narratorial distance from Pozdnyshev, versus identification with him? The decisive evidence (the 1890 Afterword) is handled by another agent. Below are the in-text cues. Two kinds run in tension: cues that frame Pozdnyshev as a damaged, possibly deranged man speaking under abnormal excitement (distance), and cues that grant his “eyes have been opened” (potential authority).
Distance cues — the framing apparatus marks him as abnormal:
- Opening physiognomy (ch. I, line 19) — before he speaks, the frame-narrator marks him as strange-looking and twitchy:
еще не старый, но с очевидно преждевременно поседевшими курчавыми волосами и с необыкновенно блестящими глазами, быстро перебегавшими с предмета на предмет.
(working English) “...not yet old, but with obviously prematurely greyed curly hair and with extraordinarily glittering eyes that darted quickly from object to object.” He also emits “странные звуки, похожие на откашливанье или на начатый и оборванный смех” (strange sounds, like throat-clearing or a laugh begun and broken off) — a tic the narrator keeps noting throughout.
- The tea / mounting excitement (ch. V, line 279) — the narrator explicitly attributes the rising heat of the monologue to the very strong tea and to a feverish state:
Должно быть, и на него действовал чай, потому что он становился всё возбужденнее и возбужденнее. Голос его становился всё более и более певучим и выразительным. Он беспрестанно менял позы, то снимал шапку, то надевал ее, и лицо его странно изменялось в той полутьме, в которой мы сидели.
(working English) “The tea must have been working on him too, for he was growing more and more excited. His voice grew more and more sing-song and expressive. He kept changing his posture — now taking off his cap, now putting it on — and his face altered strangely in the half-dark in which we sat.”
- Pozdnyshev’s own self-description as deranged / a wreck (ch. XV, line 439):
Ведь я в роде сумасшедшего. Я теперь еду от них. Я видел их, но мне их не дадут.
(working English) “After all, I’m a kind of madman. I’m travelling away from them [his children] now. I saw them, but they won’t give them to me.” And, a few sentences on:
Я — развалина, калека. Одно во мне есть. Я знаю. Да, это верно, что я знаю то, что все не скоро еще узнают.
(working English) “I’m a ruin, a cripple. One thing I have. I know. Yes, it is true that I know what everyone else will not learn for a long time yet.”
Note the double signal in this very passage: he calls himself mad and a wreck, yet in the same breath claims privileged knowledge (“я знаю то, что все не скоро еще узнают”). The text does not adjudicate between these.
- The jealousy-journey labelled madness by Pozdnyshev himself (ch. XXV, line 685):
Это было полное сумасшествие!
(working English) “It was complete madness!” — his own retrospective verdict on the state of mind that drove the killing.
- The frame-narrator’s closing impression (ch. XXVIII, line 813) — the last image is of pity, not endorsement:
Он подал мне руку и чуть улыбнулся, но так жалобно, что мне захотелось плакать.
(working English) “He gave me his hand and faintly smiled, but so piteously that I wanted to weep.” The frame closes on the narrator’s emotion toward a broken man; it does not ratify the doctrine.
Identification / authority cues — the text grants his “opened eyes”:
- The conversion claim (ch. III, line 251):
у меня открылись глаза, и я увидал всё совсем в другом свете. Всё навыворот, всё навыворот!..
(working English) “my eyes were opened, and I saw everything in a completely different light. Everything inside out, everything inside out!..” The killing is presented by him as the catastrophe that produced insight — a structure the narrator does not contradict.
- The narrator’s receptivity — the frame-narrator repeatedly says the arguments struck him (“Всё это было ново и поразило меня,” line 397; “Всё это было ново и поразило меня” / “Всё это было ново” echoes), and he listens through the night without rebutting the core theses; his interjections are mostly prompts (“Что ужасно?”, “Да чем же?”, “Отчего же наука?”), not counter-arguments. This gives Pozdnyshev’s voice the floor for ~25 of 28 chapters.
Framing cues that complicate both readings:
- The carriage debate of ch. I–II sets up several positions (merchant, lady, lawyer) that the text treats with light irony — the lady answers “не на слова своего собеседника, а на те слова, которые она думала, что он скажет” (line 51); the merchant is a “Домострой живой” (line 127). Pozdnyshev enters as the disruptor of all these positions, neither the merchant’s patriarchy nor the lady’s romantic liberalism. The text positions him against the conventional spectrum without thereby endorsing him.
- The trial’s reading of the murder as honour-defence (ch. XIX, line 523) is one the text lets Pozdnyshev reject: he says the jealousy framing is “Ничуть не бывало” and that the court only understood him as wanting to rehabilitate his wife’s honour (“они понимали так, что я хочу реабилитировать честь жены”). This raises his interpretive authority over events even as the same chapters mark him as deranged.
Net of in-text signals (not a resolution): the novella’s apparatus (physiognomy, tic, tea, half-dark, “сумасшедший,” “развалина, калека,” “полное сумасшествие,” the pitying close) consistently frames the speaker as abnormal and the listener’s final posture as pity — pushing toward distance. Simultaneously the conversion structure (“открылись глаза”), the unrebutted floor he is given, and his rejected-honour-defence raise his interpretive standing — pulling toward identification. The text holds both open; it does not, on its own surface, tell the reader which to trust. (The mainstream “Pozdnyshev = Tolstoy / autobiographical confession” reading is the mainstream’s interpretive move, not a signal the in-text frame asserts; the Afterword — covered separately — is where Tolstoy’s own alignment is argued.)