# Redactions and variants — The Kreutzer Sonata

Source: PSS vol. 27. Files extracted with `extract_tei.py --choice=reg --notes=auto`.  
Reference text: `extracts/v27_007_078_Krejtserova_sonata.txt` (final novella, pp. 7–78)  
and `extracts/v27_079_092_Posleslovie_k_Krejtserovoj_sonate.txt` (final Afterword, pp. 79–92).

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## Summary table

| File | What it is | PSS pages | Approx. length | Substantive difference from final |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| `v27_353_369_Pervaja_redaktsija_Krejtserovoj_sonaty.xml` | **First redaction** of the novella | 353–369 | 290 lines | Compressed single-chapter sketch; protagonist named Pozднышев from the outset; no train-compartment frame scene, no chapter divisions; murder weapon is a **кинжал** (dagger), wife survives briefly and asks forgiveness; narrator is a passive observer/neighbour, not a named interlocutor; the artist rival is a **painter**, not a violinist; no music scene |
| `v27_370_388_Tretja_nezakonchennaja_redaktsija_Krejtserovoj_sonaty.xml` | **Third (unfinished) redaction** | 370–388 | 202 lines | Protagonist named **Степанов** (Stepanov), not Позднышев; frame narrator is young, travelling to propose to a woman — Stepanov's bitter confession contrasts with narrator's fresh idealism; wife is described as genuinely good ("прекрасный человек"); musician named **Трухачевский**; text breaks off before the murder; most developed psychological portrait of the marriage as 13-year descent; Lessing epigram on wives included; **incomplete** |
| `v27_291_338_Krejtserova_sonata_Varianty_litografirovannoj_redaktsii.xml` | **Variants of the lithographed (samizdat) redaction** vs. the printed final text | 291–338 | 1,738 lines | **HIGH PRIORITY — see section below** |
| `v27_389_415_Varianty_k_Krejtserovoj_sonate.xml` | **Draft variants** to the novella (multi-numbered fragments) | 389–415 | 550 lines | Six numbered fragments covering: opening train-compartment dialogue (variant of old merchant and divorce debate); artist episode pre-history; variant of Pozднышев's self-identification scene; short fragment on how "arts" enable seduction; Pozднышев's self-revelation spoken directly in the carriage before the full confession is begun |
| `v27_416_418_Pervaja_redaktsija_Posleslovija_k_Krejtserovoj_sonate.xml` | **First redaction of the Afterword** | 416–418 | 34 lines | Opens with a mock-dialogue ("Читали вы последнюю повесть Толстого? — Мистицизм до добра не доведет…") showing anticipated hostile reception; four numbered theses in condensed form; ends with Tolstoy's signature "6 Декабря" — a draft sent or circulated before the full Afterword was written; no §§ on male pre-marital debauch, no detailed argument about children's upbringing |
| `v27_419_424_Vtoraja_redaktsija_Posleslovija_k_Krejtserovoj_sonate.xml` | **Second redaction of the Afterword** | 419–424 | 40 lines | Substantially longer than first; adds extended argument about Christians living in "vopiyushcheye protivorechiye" (glaring contradiction) between professed and lived values; includes explicit reference to the story's **ban from print** ("самое запрещение для печати этого рассказа"); incorporates the comparison of pagans/Muslims keeping their law vs. Christians keeping none — a passage sharper than in the final |
| `v27_425_427_Tretja_nezakonchennaja_redaktsija_Posleslovija_k_Krejtserovoj_sonate.xml` | **Third (unfinished) redaction of the Afterword** | 425–427 | 20 lines | Epistolary frame: addressed as a response to a reader's letter asking for clarification; introduces the "колокольня" (bell-tower) metaphor for the celibacy ideal as navigation landmark — a metaphor that persists into the final text but is worked out more fully here; text breaks off mid-sentence at §§ on the ideal being inaccessible to those at different moral levels |
| `v27_339_349_Krejtserova_sonata_Varianty_litografirovannoj_redaktsii_posleslovija.xml` | **Variants of the lithographed Afterword** vs. printed final | 339–349 | 344 lines | **HIGH PRIORITY — see section below** |
| `v27_428_432_Krejtserova_sonata_Varianty_k_poslesloviju.xml` | **Draft variants to the Afterword** (nine numbered fragments) | 428–432 | 56 lines | Nine short fragments exploring: sexual sin as the most concealed crime; "breed human-kind" objection answered; women's dress as incitement; the ladder of continence (polygamy→monogamy→chastity within marriage→brother-sister relations); two variants of the "compass vs. waypoints" metaphor; fragment on the Church having replaced Christ's celibacy ideal with a pagan institution of marriage |

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## Lithographed redaction — novella: key differences

The lithographed text (`лит. ред.`) circulated in manuscript/lithograph before censorship stopped print publication (c. 1889). The PSS variants file documents how it differed from the printed 13th-edition text. Selected substantive differences follow.

### 1. "Обман и насилие" → "один обман" (p. 14)

**Lithographed text:**
> браки… только лицемерие и **обман и насилие**. И вот мы чувствуем это и, чтобы избавиться от этого, проповедуем свободную любовь. В сущности же проповедь свободной любви есть не что иное, как призыв к возвращению назад, к смешению полов, — извините меня, — обратился он к даме, — к **свальному греху**. Износилась старая основа, надо найти новую, а не проповедовать разврат.

**Final printed text:** "один обман!" (one deception) — the phrases "и насилие" (and violence) and "свальный грех" (promiscuity / orgiastic sin) were softened or cut.

*Why it matters:* The litho version explicitly calls existing marriages "violence" and names free-love advocacy as a call to "свальный грех" — a phrase with strong ecclesiastical overtones. Both were likely cut under censorship pressure (the Church was a co-censor of the text). The printed version sounds provocative; the litho version sounds seditious.

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### 2. "Случные жеребцы" — the stud-horse passage (p. 23)

**Lithographed text:**
> **Мужчины нашего мира содержатся и кормятся, как случные жеребцы.** Стоит ведь только придержать спасительный клапан, т. е. развратному молодому человеку пожить немного времени воздержанной жизнью, и тотчас же получится страшное беспокойство и возбуждение, которое, проходя через призму искусственных условий нашей общественной жизни, выражается влюблением. Все наши любви и браки, все большею частью **обусловлены пищей**.

**Final printed text:** this entire passage replaced by a more detached observation about diet and over-stimulation; the stud-horse comparison does not appear.

*Why it matters:* The stud-horse simile directly equates upper-class men and stud animals kept for mating — too stark for print. The argument that "all our loves and marriages are largely conditioned by food" is retained in substance in the final but without the zoological framing.

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### 3. "Я убил ее прежде, чем я ее знал" — the Chapter IV/V opening (p. 17–19)

**Lithographed text** (chapter V opening):
> — Да, я 10 лет жил в самом безобразном разврате, мечтая о чистой, возвышенной любви, даже во имя ее. Да, я хочу рассказать, как я убил свою жену, и, чтобы рассказать это, должен рассказать, как я развратился. **Я убил ее прежде, чем я ее знал, я убил женщину в первый раз, когда не любя познал ее, и тогда уже убил жену свою.**

**Final printed text:** the chapter begins with a more muted transition; this direct formulation — "I killed her before I knew her, I killed a woman the first time I possessed her without love" — does not appear.

*Why it matters:* This is the most compressed statement of the novella's moral logic: that the institution of male debauch before marriage is already the murder, and the physical killing only the culmination. Its absence from the printed text weakens the causal chain Pozднышев draws. Likely cut because it implies that the Church-approved pre-marital double standard is the root crime, not a character flaw.

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### 4. Murder weapon variant (p. 67)

**Lithographed text:**
> за которое **я душил ее**, и я ударил ее кинжалом

**Final printed text:**
> и я как будто этого-то и ждал, **изо всех сил ударил ее кинжалом**

*Why it matters:* The litho text shows Pozднышев strangling (душил) her first, before stabbing — two sequential acts of violence. The final text omits the strangling; the dagger blow becomes the sole act. The strangling detail raises the question of premeditation more sharply and may have been cut to preserve the acquittal's plausibility.

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## Lithographed redaction — Afterword: key differences

The lithographed Afterword circulated before the novella was cleared for print. The variant file shows the litho as more direct and less architecturally organized than the final.

Key difference: the litho text does **not** contain the long final section of the printed Afterword (final pp. 83–92, "Но всё это общие соображения…") — that entire practical-guidance section was written for the printed version. The litho Afterword ends after the "two-ways-to-give-directions" (колокольня / compass) passage, making it shorter and more polemical without the pastoral concluding tone.

The litho also uses more direct first-person formulations ("я думаю то" instead of "Первое то", "Второе то" etc.) and sharper phrasing: "благодаря **безнравственному вмешательству** так называемой науки медицины" (litho) vs. "по совету служителей врачебной науки" (final) — "immoral interference of so-called medical science" vs. the tamer "on the advice of medical practitioners."