The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy
(Adapted by Joseph Cowley)
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“She began to devote herself with passion to the piano, which had formerly stood forgotten in the corner. There, at the piano, began the adventure.
"The MAN appeared."
Posdnicheff seemed shamed in speaking thus, and twice again there escaped him that strange sound of which I spoke above, as of a cry. I thought that it gave him pain to refer to the MAN, and to remember him. He made an effort, as if to break down whatever it was that shamed him, and continued with strength of will.
"He was a bad man in my eyes, not because he played such an important role in my life, but because he was really such. For the rest, from the fact that he was bad, we must conclude that he was not a responsible person.
“He was a musician, one who played the violin. Not one who earned his living that way, but half man of the world, half artist. His father, who had a place in the country, was a neighbor of my father's.
“The father had become ruined, and the children, three boys, were all sent away. Our man, the youngest, was sent to his god-mother at Paris. There they placed him in the Conservatory, for he showed a taste for music. He learned to play the violin, and played publicly."
On the point of speaking evil of the other, Posdnicheff checked himself, stopped, and said suddenly: “In truth, I know not how he lived. I only know that that year he came to Russia, and came to see me.
“He had eyes that always seemed to be wet with tears, smiling red lips, and a little hair on the upper lip. The hair on his head was brushed in the latest fashion.
“He had a pretty face – what the women call 'not bad', but was weakly built physically, with a body as broad as a woman's. He was correct in his manners, assuming a familiarity with people as far as possible, but had that sharp sense that quickly detects a false step and backs away.
“He was a man, in short, who observes the outer rules of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is revealed in buttoned shoes, a loud tie, and that something which foreigners pick up in Paris, and which, in its oddness and newness, always has an influence on our women.
“In his manners there was a false gayness, a way, you know, of saying everything by suggestion, not finishing what he begins, as if everything he says he thinks you know already, or would remember, and could supply what he fails to say.
“Well, he, with his music, was the cause of all.
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About the Book
Leo Tolstoy was born on the family estate at Yasnaya Polyana, south of Moscow, in 1828. His parents were of the Russian nobility. They died when he was young, leaving him and his three brothers to be brought up by aunts.
He began the study of law in 1844, but was a poor student and soon dropped out. In 1851, after running up heavy gambling debts, he joined the army in the Caucasus. It was about this time he began writing.
Of his early work, perhaps the best known are the three novels of his autobiographical trilogy, Childhood (1852), Boyhood (1854), and Youth (1857). They portray his happy childhood and young manhood.
Tolstoy married Sophia Behrens, 16 years his junior, in 1862. It was a marriage marked by sexual passion and emotion. Even so, their early married life was ostensibly happy and allowed Tolstoy much freedom to write.
Tolstoy died in 1910, and today is considered one of the giants of Russian literature. His most famous works include the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina and novellas such as The Death of Ivan Ilyich and The Kreutzer Sonata.
About the Author
JOSEPH COWLEY, born on October 9, 1923, graduated from Columbia University in 1947. He interrupted his academic career to serve two and a half years with the Army Air Force during World War II. The last months of service were spent overseas as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star.
He received his M.A. from Columbia in 1948 and taught English at Cornell before entering sales. Most of his career was spent writing and editing material on sales and management for The Research Institute of America. Taking early retirement in 1982 to write fiction, he moved to Lebanon, OH, with his wife Ruth to be near the eldest of their four children and two existent grandchildren.
Joseph Cowley is the author of an anthology The Best of Joseph Cowley; the novels The House on Huntington Hill, Landscape With Figures, Dust Be My Destiny, Home by Seven, and The Chrysanthemum Garden; and the plays The Stargazers, Twin Bill, and A Jury of His Peers; two collections of shorter fiction Do You Like It and Other Stories and The Night Billy Was Born and Other Love Stories; and two non-fiction books John Adams: Architect of Freedom, and The Executive Strategist, An Armchair Guide to Scientific Decision-Making. (with Robert Weisselberg)
He recently abridged and adapted Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthornefor ESL students and others interested in an easier read of the classics. The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy is the latest in this serious of Classics Condensed by Cowley to be published in this series.
His articles have appeared in trade and science journals, and his short stories in The Maryland Review, Prairie Schooner, New-Story, Ohio Short Fiction, and other literary journals and anthologies. He has plans for a book on Mathematical Concepts, another on quantum reality called Down the Rabbit Hole, and a third called George Moore and the French connection. For the present, however, his plans call for continuing to adapt the classics for ESL students.
He is listed in a number of reference volumes, among them: Who’s Who, International Who's Who of Writers and Authors, Who's Who in the World, Strathmore's Who's Who, Cambridge Blue Book, and 2000 Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century. Among the organizations he is or has been associated with are The Authors Guild, Mensa, and Great Books.