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    The Kreutzer Sonata
    The Kreutzer Sonata
    The Kreutzer Sonata
    Ebook240 pages5 hours

    The Kreutzer Sonata

    By Leo Tolstoy

    3.5/5

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    What Is Love?

    “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. She says and does horrid things, and you see only charm. And if a handsome woman does not say stupid or horrid things, you at once persuade yourself that she is wonderfully clever and moral.” - Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

    Upon hearing a woman arguing that marriage should never be arranged and always be subject to love, Pozdnyshev asks: ‘What is love?’ He condemns the argument saying that love doesn’t last forever and can quickly turn into hatred. What is Pozdnyshev’s story? Why doesn’t he believe in love?

    Xist Publishing is a digital-first publisher. Xist Publishing creates books for the touchscreen generation and is dedicated to helping everyone develop a lifetime love of reading, no matter what form it takes

      LanguageEnglish
      PublisherXist Publishing
      Release dateSep 28, 2015
      ISBN9781681952482
      Author

      Leo Tolstoy

      Leo Tolstoy grew up in Russia, raised by a elderly aunt and educated by French tutors while studying at Kazen University before giving up on his education and volunteering for military duty. When writing his greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy drew upon his diaries for material. At eighty-two, while away from home, he suffered from declining health and died in Astapovo, Riazan in 1910.

      Read more from Leo Tolstoy

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      Reviews for The Kreutzer Sonata

      3.5/5

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      • 4/5
        OH BOY, DO I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS BOOK. Most especially, about the choice to include it in a series titled Great Loves. Despite the fact that the narrator begins his tale with a rant on how awful love is -- I would argue that there is very little love on display in this book. Rather, a great deal of possessiveness, and also the stifling nature of heteronormativity. Despite all that (which did frequently get on my nerves), this is still Tolstoy, so it's still somehow fascinating and compelling even as I often wanted to hold the main character's face under water. (And yes, it seems clear that he is the character Tolstoy identifies with.) I was drawn along, rooting for the wife and for the man to gain any inkling of his inherent ass-hattedness, even though it is clear from the very beginning of his tale that neither will happen. A compulsive but frustrating but train-wrecky NOT-A-LOVE-STORY.
      • 2/5
        Not a memorable work.
      • 3/5
        Rusland, ca 1885Godsejeren Posdnyschów fortæller på en togrejse til en medrejsende hvorfor han dræbte sin kone. Han er blevet overbevist om at den kødelige kærlighed er roden til alt ondt. Man burde hylde jomfruelighed og bandlyse al seksuel omgang, der ikke foregår i ægteskabet med det formål at frembringe afkom. Hans kone og han har levet som hund og kat i et miserabelt ægteskab. Børnefødsler har taget hårdt på hans kone og lægen hjælper med prævention så hun blomstrer op igen. Faktisk så meget at hun begynder at spille på klaver og måske også så meget at hun indleder et forhold til spillelæreren Truchatschewskij. Skænderierne mellem mand og kone er ulidelige og de bruger børnene som våben i krigen. En søndag spiller konen og spillelæreren Beethoven's Kreutzer-sonate, hvilket udløser mandens jalousi. Nogle dage efter vender han uventet hjem, rasende af jalousi og stikker en kniv i konen.Udefra set er det helt urimeligt. Set gennem hans øjne det modsatte.Tolstoy mener det alvorligt og har i et efterskrift uddybet sine meninger. Synspunkterne ligner dem som Taliban fremfører i vore dage.Prostitution er en synd. Utroskab mellem ægtefolk er en synd. Ægteskabelig samkvem under diegivningen er en synd. Man bør opdrage sin børn efter andre mål end blot det smukke, velplejede legeme. Menneskene bruger for meget af deres tid og møje på at søge efter en partner.Et noget ramsaltet syn på verden
      • 3/5
        Two men sitting on a train alone during the night - the main character, Pozdnyshev, lay bare his soul and tells about the reason why he killed his wife - and the event that lead up to it - and why he got away with it. The narrator is the one who hear this brutally honest story.The main themes of this menage-a-trois are the eternal battle of the sexes - and jealousy within marriage - and infidelity (perhaps). As a story alone it's shocking, filled with indignation and rage - mainly towards the institution of marriage and the idea of romantic love - but also towards the emancipation of women.The unfortunate thing is that Tolstoy had to write a "postludium" - sort of a tract telling us readers what moral ideas he wanted to communicate with his story. I would almost say: Don't read it. It will maybe spoil the whole story. I disagreed with almost everything Tolstoy said in this postscript - and it really wasn't necessary - only made me more confused - Tolstoys dismissal of romantic love, the evil of sex, his denial of marriage as an institution, his gloomy look on women in general is not really worth to bother about.
      • 5/5
        Man, this is a vicious little thing. It grabbed me and shook me like a dog catching a squirrel.

        My homegirl Heather suggested that it'd make a good companion read to Dom Casmurro, which was a brilliant idea. It's an awesome double feature.

        Be ready to put the Kreutzer Sonata on as soon as they start playing it, around page 100 or so. It totally enhances the climax of the book.
      • 4/5
        Here Tolstoy wraps a lecture on the role of "carnal love" in our society, into a poignant story of a husband who kills his wife for cheating on him. In it he presents many good arguments as to the challenges of being married, as well as the illusions of love. Although I don't necessarily agree with all of the ideas in this book (in fact I only agree with a few) I still think that it is important to be presented with the argument in order to better develop personal opinions. I did have one issue with the story: the main character was constantly condemning actions of humans as being animal-like, swinish, and beastly. However, he also continually returns to the argument that humans should act more naturally, as the animals do. This continued contradiction was helpful in developing the nature of the character and his "madness," but it was annoying to read none the less. Overall I liked it, not my favorite Tolstoy, but still great.
      • 2/5
        The story is set on a train in Russia where the passengers are debating about the future of marriage. One passenger who had been silent speaks up. He is Pozdnyshev, who is infamous for killing his wife who he suspected of infidelity. The rest of this short novel is told by Pozdnyshev who recounts the story of his marriage and how it led to him murdering his wife. He shares his views on how the act of marriage subjugates the woman and hardly differs from prostitution. He is incredibly extreme and zealous on his views about lust and the hypocrisy of marriage. Based on his final act of killing his wife who he suspects of having an affair, but is never positive, it seems clear that Pozdnyshev is crazy. What I found disturbing was the afterword in the book written by Tolstoy, where he discusses his own views on women and marriage and he is as extreme as Pozdnyshev. This is the same man who wrote War and Peace and Anna Karenina? The Kreutzer Sonata was written near the end of Tolstoy's life after a late conversion to Christianity. What a different type of novel compared to his other works. I have loved both War and Peace and Anna Karenina, especially the altruistic behavior of many of his characters. Wow - what a different take by the same author.
      • 4/5
        "The Kreutzer Sonata" is a fascinating short novella by Leo Tolstoy. This is a quick and easy read but also pretty interesting. The tale focuses on two passengers on a train -- one man talks about how he killed his wife in a jealous rage while promoting the idea of sexual abstinence. There's a lot here to examine in this short work.
      • 3/5
        A novella. Tolstoy uses this novella to express his ideals of marriage, love, sex and his promotion of abstinence. Pozdynyshev overhears a conversation about love and divorce and becomes so agitated that he interjects himself into their conversation and challenges their ideas of love and he states that the only right state is abstinence. After they leave he tells his story of how he came to kill his wife to an unnamed passenger. Pozdyyshev became so jealous of his wife that he killed her. Tolstoy evolved a new Christianity based on his own interpretation of the Gospels. He did not believe that Jesus created marriage but the church created marriage.
      • 3/5
        I may not have completely understood The Kreutzer Sonata, but it made me kind of angry and bored at the same time. For one the protaganist had so much anger for his wife it was very hard for me to identify with him. I also felt the blame he placed on society for his mistakes was, though possibly more deserved at that time, still exaggeratory. Otherwise surely men would be killing their wives for their sexual deception all over the place? The other short stories, however, were almost like fairy tales, and were much more enjoyable.
      • 4/5
        Well, what a strange little book this turned out to be from the master.

        Is it a good read? Yes, it is. Structured around a series of short chapters and incidents, it's just right for the shot-away modern attention span (surely, the novella is the perfect form for our age?) You know what's coming, almost from the outset, because the protagonist, Troukhatchevsky, tells you so. And yet, by delaying the crucial moment and delaying it, Tolstoy builds unbearable tension. In other words, the story telling is as masterful as you would expect, as are the characterisation and fine detailing.

        The obsessive nature of the protagonist and the bizarre philosophy to which he adheres put me in mind of Raskolnikov. Well, it was after all the century of grand ideas, culminating not long after in that Republic of Ideas, the USSR. These peculiarities made Troukhatchevsky a less tragic, less sympathetic figure than otherwise he might have been. Even the counter-philosophies were rather difficult to take, from a 21st Century perspective. The theme of jealousy and its un-reason, on the other hand, remain powerfully and universally relevant, all the more so when developed by one of the great writers.
      • 3/5
        This was a short, depressing story about a man trying to explain why it was ok that he had killed his wife. He basically tells his story to a stranger sitting on a train and explains his thoughts on things like love is not something real and not a part of marriage, women are bad, children are problems, and all women do are make men jealous. There is nothing positive about this story at all, and Tolstoy himself write a few pages at the end explaining how according to Christianity, people should not be married in the first place. I think this was during Tolstoy's late life Christian phase, but in terms of this being literature, it was not a very satisfying read.
      • 5/5
        Praised by many as Tolstoy's best short story—or novella, really—I'm shocked that I've never read this until now, if only for the reason that Tolstoy's best inevitably means one of the best novellas ever written. And The Kreutzer Sonata is definitely that; it's also one of the beginning texts of existentialist literature, and I can imagine Camus and even Proust reading this with relish.

        In a mere hundred or so pages, Tolstoy attacks everything: the oppressive system of gender inequality; the class system; capitalism, money, and the ignorance in which children are reared; marriage; religion; medicine; the legal system—in short, every subject under the sun is scrutinized and unashamedly bashed to pieces here, in a novella that renders the act of confession as the only means of redemption in a world of lost faith, principles, and morals, a motif that pairs this rather well with Camus's La chute, whose own narrator seems oddly reminiscent at times with Tolstoy's in Kreutzer.

        One can see why this was banned and why there was such a scandal when Tolstoy published this in 1889, and many of its subjects and concerns are still sadly relevant today.
      • 3/5
        On a train ride, a man named Pozdnyshev overhears a conversation about love and marriage and divorce. He is reminded of his dark past, and begins telling us a tale of how he came to fall in and out of love, resulting in murdering his own wife.Pozdnyshev is a hard character to like, or to sympathize with. He seemed irrational and crazed to the utmost, not to mention perverted. He has a craving obsession for dirty, filthy, forbidden things such as prostitutes and sexual gratification, and seems set on describing these things in the most appalling way possible. He frequently compares these habits of his to those of an animal, which is how he comes to see himself.He and his wife sink into disinterest in each other, and eventually to bitterness and hatred. The extent of Pozdnyshev's rage toward her could certainly be called abuse. The climatic scene where he commits murder was a terrible one, and quite memorable. For a moment, the blindingly furious man checks himself and realizes what he has done, and it is a very dark moment in the book. However, within just a few sentances, he is back to being the abhorrent villain, as he begins telling his wife that he forgives her.Forgives her? It is HIM who needs forgiving! He has made every day of her life absolute hell, and now he has murdered her. And yet he "forgives her."Tolstoy has written an impacting story for such a small number of pages, but I wish that the main character had been more relatable and the story drawn out into a bit more detail.
      • 5/5
        The narrator of this story tells us about a conversation he has with a man on a train who introduces himself as the infamous man who has been in all of the papers for murdering his wife. He proceeds to explain to the narrator why he committed the murder and how the very nature of love and sexual attraction between men and women inevitably leads to heartbreak and anger.It was easy to empathize, if not exactly sympathize, with the murderer and his wife, and there were many facets of their relationship that I feel are true of every male/ female relationship. Tolstoy does an excellent job of telling us just how messed up our relationships are by using this character and the extreme nature of the way his marriage ended. Every note of Tolstoy's Sonata struck a chord with me as the reader and the book left me reexamining the very nature of my beliefs about love and marriage. While I didn't necessarily agree with the murderer's beliefs, it did make me reconsider some things.
      • 1/5
        A rant that goes on and on about the horrible consequences of lust, reflecting the tendency of religion to warp sex.
      • 3/5
        The Kreutzer Sonata is one of Tolstoy’s later works and revolves around his moral beliefs about lust, love, and marriage. To the point: a conversation takes place on a train between passengers about love and marriage. One passenger, Pozdnyshev, becomes agitated and says (I paraphrase), love and marriage are a bunch of crap. He then recounts in detail how and why he killed his wife in a jealous fit.This is Tolstoy, so the story is well-crafted and all the other key words and catch phrases that describe excellent writing. What I found interesting is that Pozdnyshev blames society’s loose morals for setting him up for failure in his marriage. As a young man he partied. He slept around, drank, etc. He goes on to say his former purely pleasure driven relations with women, which for the most part were secretly accepted by society if not openly condoned, ruined his relationship with his wife. "Yes, my relations with women were lost forever. Pure relations with women, from that time forward, I could no longer have. I had become what is called a voluptuary; and to be a voluptuary is a physical condition like the condition of a victim of the morphine habit, of a drunkard, and of a smoker. Just as the victim of the morphine habit, the drunkard, the smoker, is no longer a normal man, so the man who has known several women for his pleasure is no longer normal. He is abnormal forever. He is a voluptuary. Just as the drunkard and the victim of the morphine habit may be recognized by their face and manner, so we may recognize a voluptuary. He may repress himself and struggle, but nevermore will he enjoy simple, pure, and fraternal relations toward woman. By his way of glancing at a young woman one may at once recognize a voluptuary; and I became a voluptuary, and I have remained one."I find the idea interesting in light of today’s obsession with sexuality and porn. The book is an insight into Victorian morality (Can it be Victorian if it’s Russian?,) and it can actually be read as an early feminist text.Is it worth reading? If you’re interested in the aforementioned topics and want a quick Russian literature read, yes. If you want action and intrigue and don’t care what people thought about sex, love, and marriage in the olden days, no.
      • 4/5
        Beethoven's "Kreutzer Sonata" is full of emotion, so no wonder it serves as a sort of a turning point in this novella whose story is so heart-rending. The distraught protagonist pours his heart out to a stranger on the train - giving his own pessimistic definition of "love", proclaiming the mockery of marriage within his class level in Russian society, and how his own poisonous relationship with his wife develops and is doomed from the start. The emotional torment permeates the novella and denouement is disastrous.I think this novella is monumental in the amount of meaning it carries as to its criticism of Russian society of that era. (To get a better feel of the storyline I had the famous sonata playing quietly in the background as I was reading). Tolstoy is more known for his longer and epical novels, so it was interesting to see him "squeeze" so much meaning in this short novella. But it was obviously what he observed and wanted to express. I wish I can get my hands on the Russian version one day - this is not to say that the translation (by Louise and Aylmer Maude) was not adequate, for it was.

      Book preview

      The Kreutzer Sonata - Leo Tolstoy

      wife.

      CHAPTER I.

      Travellers left and entered our car at every stopping of the train. Three persons, however, remained, bound, like myself, for the farthest station: a lady neither young nor pretty, smoking cigarettes, with a thin face, a cap on her head, and wearing a semi-masculine outer garment; then her companion, a very loquacious gentleman of about forty years, with baggage entirely new and arranged in an orderly manner; then a gentleman who held himself entirely aloof, short in stature, very nervous, of uncertain age, with bright eyes, not pronounced in color, but extremely attractive,—eyes that darted with rapidity from one object to another.

      This gentleman, during almost all the journey thus far, had entered into conversation with no fellow-traveller, as if he carefully avoided all acquaintance. When spoken to, he answered curtly and decisively, and began to look out of the car window obstinately.

      Yet it seemed to me that the solitude weighed upon him. He seemed to perceive that I understood this, and when our eyes met, as happened frequently, since we were sitting almost opposite each other, he turned away his head, and avoided conversation with me as much as with the others. At nightfall, during a stop at a large station, the gentleman with the fine baggage—a lawyer, as I have since learned—got out with his companion to drink some tea at the restaurant. During their absence several new travellers entered the car, among whom was a tall old man, shaven and wrinkled, evidently a merchant, wearing a large heavily-lined cloak and a big cap. This merchant sat down opposite the empty seats of the lawyer and his companion, and straightway entered into conversation with a young man who seemed like an employee in some commercial house, and who had likewise just boarded the train. At first the clerk had remarked that the seat opposite was occupied, and the old man had answered that he should get out at the first station. Thus their conversation started.

      I was sitting not far from these two travellers, and, as the train was not in motion, I could catch bits of their conversation when others were not talking.

      They talked first of the prices of goods and the condition of business; they referred to a person whom they both knew; then they plunged into the fair at Nijni Novgorod. The clerk boasted of knowing people who were leading a gay life there, but the old man did not allow him to continue, and, interrupting him, began to describe the festivities of the previous year at Kounavino, in which he had taken part. He was evidently proud of these recollections, and, probably thinking that this would detract nothing from the gravity which his face and manners expressed, he related with pride how, when drunk, he had fired, at Kounavino, such a broadside that he could describe it only in the other's ear.

      The clerk began to laugh noisily. The old man laughed too, showing two long yellow teeth. Their conversation not interesting me, I left the car to stretch my legs. At the door I met the lawyer and his lady.

      You have no more time, the lawyer said to me. The second bell is about to ring.

      Indeed I had scarcely reached the rear of the train when the bell sounded. As I entered the car again, the lawyer was talking with his companion in an animated fashion. The merchant, sitting opposite them, was taciturn.

      And then she squarely declared to her husband, said the lawyer with a smile, as I passed by them, that she neither could nor would live with him, because . . .

      And he continued, but I did not hear the rest of the sentence, my attention being distracted by the passing of the conductor and a new traveller. When silence was restored, I again heard the lawyer's voice. The conversation had passed from a special case to general considerations.

      And afterward comes discord, financial difficulties, disputes between the two parties, and the couple separate. In the good old days that seldom happened. Is it not so? asked the lawyer of the two merchants, evidently trying to drag them into the conversation.

      Just then the train started, and the old man, without answering, took off his cap, and crossed himself three times while muttering a prayer. When he had finished, he clapped his cap far down on his head, and said:

      Yes, sir, that happened in former times also, but not as often. In the present day it is bound to happen more frequently. People have become too learned.

      The lawyer made some reply to the old man, but the train, ever increasing its speed, made such a clatter upon the rails that I could no longer hear distinctly. As I was interested in what the old man was saying, I drew nearer. My neighbor, the nervous gentleman, was evidently interested also, and, without changing his seat, he lent an ear.

      But what harm is there in education? asked the lady, with a smile that was scarcely perceptible. Would it be better to marry as in the old days, when the bride and bridegroom did not even see each other before marriage? she continued, answering, as is the habit of our ladies, not the words that her interlocutor had spoken, but the words she believed he was going to speak. Women did not know whether they would love or would be loved, and they were married to the first comer, and suffered all their lives. Then you think it was better so? she continued, evidently addressing the lawyer and myself, and not at all the old man.

      People have become too learned, repeated the last, looking at the lady with contempt, and leaving her question unanswered.

      I should be curious to know how you explain the correlation between education and conjugal differences, said the lawyer, with a slight smile.

      The merchant wanted to make some reply, but the lady interrupted him.

      No, those days are past.

      The lawyer cut short her words:—

      Let him express his thought.

      Because there is no more fear, replied the old man.

      But how will you marry people who do not love each other? Only animals can be coupled at the will of a proprietor. But people have inclinations, attachments, the lady hastened to say, casting a glance at the lawyer, at me, and even at the clerk, who, standing up and leaning his elbow on the back of a seat, was listening to the conversation with a smile.

      You are wrong to say that, madam, said the old man. The animals are beasts, but man has received the law.

      But, nevertheless, how is one to live with a man when there is no love? said the lady, evidently excited by the general sympathy and attention.

      Formerly no such distinctions were made, said the old man, gravely. Only now have they become a part of our habits. As soon as the least thing happens, the wife says: 'I release you. I am going to leave your house.' Even among the moujiks this fashion has become acclimated. 'There,' she says, 'here are your shirts and drawers. I am going off with Vanka. His hair is curlier than yours.' Just go talk with them. And yet the first rule for the wife should be fear.

      The clerk looked at the lawyer, the lady, and myself, evidently repressing a smile, and all ready to deride or approve the merchant's words, according to the attitude of the others.

      What fear? said the lady.

      This fear,—the wife must fear her husband; that is what fear.

      Oh, that, my little father, that is ended.

      No, madam, that cannot end. As she, Eve, the woman, was taken from man's ribs, so she will remain unto the end of the world, said the old man, shaking his head so triumphantly and so severely that the clerk, deciding that the victory was on his side, burst into a loud laugh.

      Yes, you men think so, replied the lady, without surrendering, and turning toward us. You have given yourself liberty. As for woman, you wish to keep her in the seraglio. To you, everything is permissible. Is it not so?

      Oh, man,—that's another affair.

      Then, according to you, to man everything is permissible?

      No one gives him this permission; only, if the man behaves badly outside, the family is not increased thereby; but the woman, the wife, is a fragile vessel, continued the merchant, severely.

      His tone of authority evidently subjugated his hearers. Even the lady felt crushed, but she did not surrender.

      Yes, but you will admit, I think, that woman is a human being, and has feelings like her husband. What should she do if she does not love her husband?

      If she does not love him! repeated the old man, stormily, and knitting his brows; why, she will be made to love him.

      This unexpected argument pleased the clerk, and he uttered a murmur of approbation.

      Oh, no, she will not be forced, said the lady. Where there is no love, one cannot be obliged to love in spite of herself.

      And if the wife deceives her husband, what is to be done? said the lawyer.

      That should not happen, said the old man. He must have his eyes about him.

      And if it does happen, all the same? You will admit that it does happen?

      It happens among the upper classes, not among us, answered the old man. And if any husband is found who is such a fool as not to rule his wife, he will not have robbed her. But no scandal, nevertheless. Love or not, but do not disturb the household. Every husband can govern his wife. He has the necessary power. It is only the imbecile who does not succeed in doing so.

      Everybody was silent. The clerk moved, advanced, and, not wishing to lag behind the others in the conversation, began with his eternal smile:

      Yes, in the house of our employer, a scandal has arisen, and it is very difficult to view the matter clearly. The wife loved to amuse herself, and began to go astray. He is a capable and serious man. First, it was with the book-keeper. The husband tried to bring her back to reason through kindness. She did not change her conduct. She plunged into all sorts of beastliness. She began to steal his money. He beat her, but she grew worse and worse. To an unbaptized, to a pagan, to a Jew (saving your permission), she went in succession for her caresses. What could the employer do? He has dropped her entirely, and now he lives as a bachelor. As for her, she is dragging in the depths.

      He is an imbecile, said the old man. If from the first he had not allowed her to go in her own fashion, and had kept a firm hand upon her, she would be living honestly, no danger. Liberty must be taken away from the beginning. Do not trust yourself to your horse upon the highway. Do not trust yourself to your wife at home.

      At that moment the conductor passed, asking for the tickets for the next station. The old man gave up his.

      Yes, the feminine sex must be dominated in season, else all will perish.

      And you yourselves, at Kounavino, did you not lead a gay life with the pretty girls? asked the lawyer with a smile.

      Oh, that's another matter, said the merchant, severely. Good-by, he added, rising. He wrapped himself in his cloak, lifted his cap, and, taking his bag, left the car.

      CHAPTER II.

      Scarcely had the old man gone when a general conversation began.

      There's a little Old Testament father for you, said the clerk.

      He is a Domostroy,* said the lady. What savage ideas about a woman and marriage!

          *The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the

          Terrible.

      Yes, gentlemen, said the lawyer, we are still a long way from the European ideas upon marriage. First, the rights of woman, then free marriage, then divorce, as a question not yet solved. . . .

      The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not understand, rejoined the lady, is that only love consecrates marriage, and that the real marriage is that which is consecrated by love.

      The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of one accustomed to store in his memory all intelligent conversation that he hears, in order to make use of it afterwards.

      But what is this love that consecrates marriage? said, suddenly, the voice of the nervous and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us, had approached.

      He was standing with his hand on the seat, and evidently agitated. His face was red, a vein in his forehead was swollen, and the muscles of his cheeks quivered.

      What is this love that consecrates marriage? he repeated.

      What love? said the lady. The ordinary love of husband and wife.

      And how, then, can ordinary love consecrate marriage? continued the nervous gentleman, still excited, and with a displeased air. He seemed to wish to say something disagreeable to the lady. She felt it, and began to grow agitated.

      How? Why, very simply, said she.

      The nervous gentleman seized the word as it left her lips.

      No, not simply.

      Madam says, interceded the lawyer indicating his companion, that marriage should be first the result of an attachment, of a love, if you will, and that, when love exists, and in that case only, marriage represents something sacred. But every marriage which is not based on a natural attachment, on love, has in it nothing that is morally obligatory. Is not that the idea that you intended to convey? he asked the lady.

      The lady, with a nod of her head, expressed her approval of this translation of her thoughts.

      Then, resumed the lawyer, continuing his remarks.

      But the nervous gentleman, evidently scarcely able to contain himself, without allowing the lawyer to finish, asked:

      Yes, sir. But what are we to understand by this love that alone consecrates marriage?

      Everybody knows what love is, said the lady.

      But I don't know, and I should like to know how you define it.

      How? It is very simple, said the lady.

      And she seemed thoughtful, and then said:

      Love . . . love . . . is a preference for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. . . .

      A preference for how long? . . . For a month, two days, or half an hour? said the nervous gentleman, with special irritation.

      No, permit me, you evidently are not talking of the same thing.

      Yes, I am talking absolutely of the same thing. Of the preference for one man or one woman to the exclusion of all others. But I ask: a preference for how long?

      For how long? For a long time, for a life-time sometimes.

      But that happens only in novels. In life, never. In life this preference for one to the exclusion of all others lasts in rare cases several years, oftener several months, or even weeks, days, hours. . . .

      Oh, sir. Oh, no, no, permit me, said all three of us at the same time.

      The clerk himself uttered a monosyllable of disapproval.

      Yes, I know, he said, shouting louder than all of us; you are talking of what is believed to exist, and I am talking of what is. Every man feels what you call love toward each pretty woman he sees, and very little toward his wife. That is the origin of the proverb,—and it is a true one,—'Another's wife is a white swan, and ours is bitter wormwood.'

      Ah, but what you say is terrible! There certainly exists among human beings this feeling which is called love, and which lasts, not for months and years, but for life.

      No, that does not exist. Even if it should be admitted that Menelaus had preferred Helen all his life, Helen would have preferred Paris; and so it has been, is, and will be eternally. And it cannot be otherwise, just as it cannot happen that, in a load of chick-peas, two peas marked with a special sign should fall side by side. Further, this is not only an improbability, but it is certain that a feeling of satiety will come to Helen or to Menelaus. The whole difference is that to one it comes sooner, to the other later. It is only in stupid novels that it is written that 'they loved each other all their lives.' And none but children can believe it. To talk of loving a man or woman for life is like saying that a candle can burn forever.

      But you are talking of physical love. Do you not admit a love based upon a conformity of ideals, on a spiritual affinity?

      Why not? But in that case it is not necessary to procreate together (excuse my brutality). The point is that this conformity of ideals is not met among old people, but among young and pretty persons, said he, and he began to laugh disagreeably.

      Yes, I affirm that love, real love, does not consecrate marriage, as we are in the habit of believing, but that, on the contrary, it ruins it.

      Permit me, said the lawyer. The facts contradict your words. We see that marriage exists, that all humanity—at least the larger portion—lives conjugally, and that many husbands and wives honestly end a long life together.

      The nervous gentleman smiled ill-naturedly.

      And what then? You say that marriage is based upon love, and when I give voice to a doubt as to the existence of any other love than sensual love, you prove to me the existence of love by marriage. But in our day marriage is only a violence and falsehood.

      No, pardon me, said the lawyer. I say only that marriages have existed and do exist.

      But how and why do they exist? They have existed, and they do exist, for people who have seen, and do see, in marriage something sacramental, a sacrament that is binding before God. For such people marriages exist, but to us they are only hypocrisy and violence. We feel it, and, to clear ourselves, we preach free love; but, really, to preach free love is only a call backward to the promiscuity of the sexes (excuse me, he said to the lady), the haphazard sin of certain raskolniks. The old foundation is shattered; we must build a new one, but we must not preach debauchery.

      He grew so warm that all became silent, looking at him in astonishment.

      "And yet the transition state is terrible. People feel that haphazard sin is inadmissible. It is necessary in some way or other to regulate the sexual relations; but there exists no other foundation than the old one, in which nobody longer believes? People marry in the old fashion, without believing in what they do, and the result is falsehood, violence. When it is falsehood alone, it is easily endured. The husband and wife simply deceive the world by professing to live monogamically. If they really are polygamous and polyandrous,

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