Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was, as everybody knows, one of the greatest Russian writers. He had a very contradictory personality and he bore inside himself a tormented nature rich of many nuances, including the best and worst sides of human nature.
I don’t know why one of his novels (a short one, while usually his novels were enormously huge) suddenly came to my mind today and made me think over on a much more banal tendency of
common people.
Just to introduce my unnecessary reasoning I have to mention
quickly the novel I’m speaking of.
“The Kreutzer Sonata”
It’s an example of the sublime prose of Tolstoy and of his nearly
morbid late moralism, which was a dramatic count of indictment against all sensual aspect of life and indirectly against himself for his former turbulent sexual instincts. Tolstoy in his late years opposed the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence, but this is not a topic to treat here quickly and superficially.
I don’t know why one of his novels (a short one, while usually his novels were enormously huge) suddenly came to my mind today and made me think over on a much more banal tendency of
common people.
Just to introduce my unnecessary reasoning I have to mention
quickly the novel I’m speaking of.
“The Kreutzer Sonata”
It’s an example of the sublime prose of Tolstoy and of his nearly
morbid late moralism, which was a dramatic count of indictment against all sensual aspect of life and indirectly against himself for his former turbulent sexual instincts. Tolstoy in his late years opposed the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence, but this is not a topic to treat here quickly and superficially.
In “ The Kreutzer Sonata”, the protagonist, Pozdnyshev, during a train ride start a conversation with the other passengers, all
strangers to each other and he expresses his cynical and
pessimistic views on women, marriage and love and then confess to his casual fellow travelers that he had killed his wife because of blind
jealousy.
He tells how his wife, passionate of music and amateur pianist, had started playing at home with a violinist and even though there had not been any evidence that she might have any guilty relationship with him, he decided to come back in advance from a business trip to catch the two presumed lovers.
He found the two musicians playing “The Kreutzer Sonata” of Beethoven ( so the title of the novels is clear now) and the intimacy created among them by the music made him mad of rage and jealousy and he killed his wife, while the violinist could escape.
Later he was acquitted of murder with the justification of the possible apparent adultery of his wife.
But what made me think over in all that was the idea that sometimes it’s easier to reveal a deep and intimate secret to perfect strangers, people we are sure we’ll not meet again anymore, rather than opening our heart to people who are more familiar and belong to our life.
Maybe it’s because we are conditioned by the fear of being judged, while the opinion of a stranger is made irrelevant by the fact that a stranger doesn’t belong to our life, so he’s not influent, has not any real determined role.
strangers to each other and he expresses his cynical and
pessimistic views on women, marriage and love and then confess to his casual fellow travelers that he had killed his wife because of blind
jealousy.
He tells how his wife, passionate of music and amateur pianist, had started playing at home with a violinist and even though there had not been any evidence that she might have any guilty relationship with him, he decided to come back in advance from a business trip to catch the two presumed lovers.
He found the two musicians playing “The Kreutzer Sonata” of Beethoven ( so the title of the novels is clear now) and the intimacy created among them by the music made him mad of rage and jealousy and he killed his wife, while the violinist could escape.
Later he was acquitted of murder with the justification of the possible apparent adultery of his wife.
But what made me think over in all that was the idea that sometimes it’s easier to reveal a deep and intimate secret to perfect strangers, people we are sure we’ll not meet again anymore, rather than opening our heart to people who are more familiar and belong to our life.
Maybe it’s because we are conditioned by the fear of being judged, while the opinion of a stranger is made irrelevant by the fact that a stranger doesn’t belong to our life, so he’s not influent, has not any real determined role.
In all cases the unpleasant Pozdnyshev (who represents the ideas of Tolstoy in the novel)
seems to seek for forgiveness from the unknown fellow passengers; more support
that forgiveness in a way, he seeks
confirmation that his act was right.
I wonder how many people might feel the need to unload their inner troubles and to feel in a way relieved revealing them to casual temporary witnesses, who don’t represent any danger and whose reaction and opinions would not change the life, the way it runs until the next station…
Tolstoy was a questionable man, as for private life, but he was a genius and he chose genially the sonata which describes the tragic epilogue of the unhappy wife’s life.
In the Kreutzer sonata the piano and the violin have a deep intimate dialogue, in a sensual alternation which repeats each other tune.
seems to seek for forgiveness from the unknown fellow passengers; more support
that forgiveness in a way, he seeks
confirmation that his act was right.
I wonder how many people might feel the need to unload their inner troubles and to feel in a way relieved revealing them to casual temporary witnesses, who don’t represent any danger and whose reaction and opinions would not change the life, the way it runs until the next station…
Tolstoy was a questionable man, as for private life, but he was a genius and he chose genially the sonata which describes the tragic epilogue of the unhappy wife’s life.
In the Kreutzer sonata the piano and the violin have a deep intimate dialogue, in a sensual alternation which repeats each other tune.
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