Крейцерова соната

Translated by Benjamin Tucker

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93
Т53

ISBN 978-5-9925-1147-5

Толстой, Лев Николаевич.
Т53 
Крейцерова соната : книга для чтения на английском языке. — Санкт-Петербург : КАРО, 2016. — 
160 с. —  (Русская классическая литература на иностранных языках).

ISBN 978-5-9925-1147-5.

Предлагаем вниманию читателей повесть Л. Н. Толстого 
«Крейцерова соната», увидевшую свет в 1890 году и вызвавшую большой резонанс в обществе. Перевод Бенджамина 
Такера дополнен комментарием.
УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

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Лев Николаевич Толстой

КРейцеРОвА сОНАТА 
The Kreuzer SoNaTa

Комментарии и словарь Е. Г. Тигонен

Ответственный редактор О. П. Панайотти 
Технический редактор Я. В. Попова 
Корректор Е. Г. Тигонен 
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Гигиенический сертификат 
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Chapter I1

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 

Kreutzer Rodolpho (1766–1831), a French violinist, 
composer, conductor; Ludwig van Beethoven devoted 
one of his sonatas to that violinist

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 
wrink led, 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 neigh bor, 
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 moujiks1 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 father2, 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.

1 moujiks — Russian peasants
2 my little father — old Russian informal address

“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 seraglio1. 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.”

1 seraglio — the part of a Muslim house or palace in 
which the wives and concubines are secluded; harem