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THE 
 
 "KREUTZER SONATA" 
 
 REVIEWED BY A WOMAN 
 
 Broadway Publishing Company 
 
 835 BROADWAY, NEW YORK 
 
AT * * » 
 
 Oq-a^Mz^ 
 
 5$ 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONG RE 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 JAr 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 CUSS ^ XX©, N*. 
 COPY A. 
 
 Copyright 1904, 
 by 
 
 ADELAIDE COMSTOCK 
 
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 WOMAN EVERYWHERE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 FROM WOMAN TO WOMAN. 
 
 "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of 
 wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go 
 free, and that ye break every yoke?"— Isaiah lviii. 6. 
 
 44 A farther advance of civilization would drop our cumbrous modes, 
 and leave the social element to be its own law and to obliterate all 
 formal bonds." — Emerson. 
 
 44 It is an axiom in science, that nature can only be governed by 
 obeying her laws."— Tuttlb. 
 
■ 
 
PRELUDE. 
 
 "And there appeared a wonder in heaven: A 
 woman clothed with the sun!' 
 
 Clothed with the sun, woman, thou yet shalt 
 
 rise and shine, 
 Life-giver of the nation, and Queen by right 
 
 divine ! 
 The stone the purblind workmen have dishonored 
 
 and defaced 
 The Master at his coming will surely fix in place. 
 And when he reveals his purpose (from their dull 
 
 vision hid), 
 They will cry, "0, Master, spare us ! We knew not 
 
 what we did." 
 For lo ! in the revealing the truth shall be made 
 
 known 
 That the hitherto rejected was the chief corner 
 
 stone. 
 
, vi Prelude. 
 
 Behold the Master standing with hand uplifted 
 high, 
 
 In majesty declaring, "My purpose shall not lie! 
 
 Nor man's mistake nor cunning shall thwart what 
 I have planned, 
 
 For he must aye acknowledge mine is the master- 
 hand. 
 
 As brightest gems, though hidden long ages in 
 the ground, 
 
 Are brought forth at man's bidding to deck a 
 monarch's crown, 
 
 This stone so long rejected, dishonored and de- 
 faced, 
 
 Refused in the foundation, shall fill a worthy 
 place. 
 
 Aside, ye unskilled neophytes ! and leave this work 
 to me, 
 
 Polished and lifted to its place, the keystone it 
 shall be 
 
 In the arch of The Grand Tem'ple of Redeemed 
 Humanity" 
 
EXPLANATORY NOTE. 
 
 A review of "Kreutzer Sonata" presented lO 
 the public at this time may seem a strange literary 
 whim, but this review and criticism was written 
 shortly after the first appearance of "Kreutzer So- 
 nata" in the United States. It was withheld from 
 earlier publication in the hope that some other 
 writer, appreciating the truth it was intended to 
 convey, and the moral lesson to be drawn there- 
 from, might come to the rescue of the noted author 
 and advance his effort for good by defending the 
 motive that prompted the publication of a work 
 which seemed to so shock proprieties that an at- 
 tempt was made to strangle it on the threshold 
 of public existence. 
 
 Years have passed, however, and except the 
 brief comments on its first issuance nothing has 
 appeared. But Tolstoi's works will live — and the 
 purpose of "Kreutzer Sonata" cannot be ignored. 
 We therefore launch our well meaning effort on its 
 
 vii 
 
viii Explanatory Note. 
 
 mission — which may be but the arousing of public 
 controversy on the all-important subject of the 
 true relation of man and woman — socially and 
 politically. "In multitude of counsellors there 
 is safety." (Prov. 24, 6.) 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Solomon says, "Of making many books there 
 is no end." 
 
 It is not for the sake of launching another bark 
 on the sea of literature that the author "of these 
 pages has concluded to attempt a brief review of 
 that most extraordinary work, the "Kreutzer 
 Sonata/' but for a purpose which, she trusts, will 
 sufficiently reveal itself in the perusal of these 
 pages. 
 
 The book under review is the strange and al- 
 most indefinable production of a master-mind. 
 For a work of Count Tolstoi's to be menaced at 
 the public threshold with suppression on account 
 of its indelicacy, seemed preposterous to readers 
 of his previous works, especially "My Religion," 
 which for purity and elevation of thought could 
 scarcely be surpassed. Indeed, it stands almost 
 unequalled in its Christ-like ideal of practical re- 
 ligious life. Thus, among even the purest minded, 
 
Introduction. 
 
 there was naturally a desire to know wherein the 
 offence lay, or what the mooted subject could be, 
 that its fitness for public dissemination should be 
 questioned. 
 
 Its title of "Kreutzer Sonata" revealed nothing 
 in the way of explanation; the only way to know 
 its meaning was to read it. Thus the curious 
 public, from the purest minded to the most de- 
 praved, so anxiously snatch up the "forbidden 
 fruit" that the demand can scarcely be supplied. 
 Of course, it is but the sensation of the hour ; as, 
 really one would have expected something more 
 reasonable and with object more clearly defined 
 from a literary genius capable of such sublime con- 
 ceptions as we have heretofore considered Tolstoi. 
 He might have said all he wished to say, on the 
 subject of his scriptural text even, but in a better 
 manner. Plain language, but to the point, would 
 have been tolerated from his pen on the ground 
 of purity of motive. 
 
 But the "Kreutzer Sonata" reminds us of one, 
 who, in a fit of desperation throws a bomb into 
 a crowd merely to startle and arrest attention and 
 then fails to give any satisfactory explanation of 
 his motive for doing so. All he can say is, "Some- 
 thing is wrong and needs righting." 
 
 The thinking public is well aware of that. The 
 unthinking majority — the apathetic crowd — need 
 
Introduction. xi 
 
 to be startled and aroused. The bomb will have 
 its effect. 
 
 So far as man is concerned, let him be his 
 own defender. But there is need that some woman 
 came forth to the rescue of her sex, and make an 
 attempt to put before the public the matter of 
 the much misunderstood proper relation of the 
 sexes, in a clearer light; and knowing well the 
 truth of the old adage, that "The surest way, if 
 you want your business done, is to do it yourself," 
 I have concluded to act according thereto; and 
 shall now apply myself to the task. 
 
 Adelaide Comstock. 
 
 Ventura, Cal., 1890. 
 
THE "KREUTZER SONATA" 
 REVIEWED BY A WOMAN. 
 
 REVIEW. 
 
 The first chapter of "Kreutzer Sonata" may be 
 reviewed in few words. The reader is therefore 
 introduced at once to the company of railway 
 travellers, whose conversation leads to the main 
 subject-matter of the work under review. 
 
 The old shopkeeper, who piously crossed him- 
 self three times and muttered a prayer before giv- 
 ing vent to the expression : "The world is growing 
 too learned nowadays," is an illustration of the 
 old adage, "If ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be 
 
 wise." 
 
 With him those were "the good old days" when 
 a woman was kept in subjection through fear of 
 her husband^ and if she did not love him, to use 
 
2 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 
 
 his own words, "then she must be made to love 
 him/' 
 
 "A husband can always make his wife obey. 
 His physical strength will always insure that. It 
 is a fool who will let his wife wear the breeches," 
 is the old man's argument. "Yes, yes; the femi- 
 nine sex must be kept under or there will be no 
 peace in the family." 
 
 No wonder that on his leaving the car his travel- 
 ling companions gave free expression to their opin- 
 ion of him as follows. Which brings us into the 
 second chapter. 
 
 "That old fellow," said the drummer, "is a 
 patriarch out of the Old Testament." 
 
 "He's a regular Demostray/' said the lady, 
 "what antediluvian ideas he has about woman and 
 marriage." 
 
 She had tried to reason with the old man, but 
 his arbitrary manner of asserting his antiquated 
 notions of woman's sphere had caused her to give 
 up in disgust. 
 
 "Yes/' observed the lawyer, "we are a long way 
 off modern notions yet, at least, in marital affairs. 
 The rights of women, free choice and divorce, 
 these are questions not settled with us." 
 
 "The most essential of all, and that least under- 
 stood by people like that man, is that marriage is 
 no marriage except it be consecrated by love." 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 3 
 
 This last remark, presumably by the lady, at- 
 tracts the attention of a fellow traveller described 
 as "the silent and nervous man in the corner/' 
 who 'hitherto had taken no part in the conversa- 
 tion, but now, unobserved, had approached them, 
 and standing with one hand on the seat, appeared 
 moved even to excitement as he put the question : 
 "What sort of love is it that marriage con- 
 secrates P" 
 
 In his earnestness he repeats the question before 
 his audience had time to reply. 
 
 The lady is the first to speak. "What love? 
 The common love that binds husband and wife." 
 
 "And how can a common love sanctify mar- 
 riage?" continued the nervous man, with a dis- 
 satisfied air, and looking as if he were going to 
 say something unpleasant to the lady, which she 
 feels and in her confusion merely replies, "Why, 
 easily enough." 
 
 But he will not be put off with that, and makes 
 answer, "No, not so easily." 
 
 The lawyer comes to her rescue thus: "Madam 
 would say that all marriages ought to be the con- 
 sequence of a mutual attachment — of love, if you 
 choose to call it so, and that marriage is sacred 
 only when love is present. No marriage is obli- 
 gatory that is not based on love. Is not that 
 your meaning?" he asked the lady. 
 
4 The " Kreutzer Sonata 
 
 She nodded assent. But the nervous gentleman 
 will not be satisfied, and insists on a more definite 
 answer to his question, which he now puts in a 
 somewhat different form. 
 
 "Yes, yes ! But what are we to understand by 
 this love that alone consecrates marriage?" 
 
 And so the discussion goes on. 
 
 "Everybody knows what love is," said the lady. 
 
 "I don't, and I should like to hear you define 
 it," is the response. She reflected a moment, then 
 said: 
 
 "Love is the exclusive preference of one to all 
 others." 
 
 "And how long is this preference to last ? — for a 
 month, or a day, or half an hour?" exclaimed the 
 nervous gentleman, with sudden irritation. 
 
 "For how long? Why, forever, of course," is 
 the lady's ready reply. 
 
 "But that happens in romances only. In real 
 life never," contends the unsatisfied questioner; 
 but in this the whole party manifest decidedly 
 that they disagree with him, but he persists, and 
 clinches his argument thus : "To love anybody for 
 the whole of one's life, is to say that a candle will 
 burn forever and ever without wasting." 
 
 I must admit that I can see no logic in such 
 argument as this of our pessimistic friend, who, 
 by the way, is the principal character we have to 
 
[ Reviewed by a Woman. 5 
 
 deal with from this on; and the chief difficulty 
 lies in discussing the subject of love with one 
 who does not seem to even recognize its first prin- 
 ciples from a moral or spiritual point of view. 
 For thus he continues: 
 
 "You say that marriage is based on love, and 
 when I express a doubt of the existence of any 
 love not originating in sensuality, you attempt 
 to prove the existence of love by marriage. But 
 nowadays marriage is nothing more than violence 
 and falsehood." 
 
 "Pardon me/' exclaimed the lawyer. "I only 
 asserted that marriage has existed, and exists 
 still." 
 
 Again: "But how and why does it exist? It 
 exists only among people who look upon it as a 
 sacrament or bargain, between man and God. It 
 exists for them, but for us it is nothing but hypoc- 
 risy and brute force. We feel that, and to make 
 ourselves easy, we preach free love; but free love 
 is nothing more than a return to promiscuousness, 
 which is mere fishing in the dark." With a bow 
 to the lady, and with many excuses for his plain 
 speech he continues the conversation, and keep9 
 his audience in astonished silence. 
 
 "The ancient foundation is uprooted, we must 
 build another. But we need not preach debauch- 
 ery. 
 
The M Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 "However, the situation is terrible in the ex- 
 treme. We must, by some means or other, regu- 
 late our sexual relations, but there is bur one plan, 
 and nobody believes in that any more. People 
 marry after the old fashion, without the faith 
 that sustained it. and what the results? Brute 
 force and hypocrisy. When it is hypocrisy things 
 go smoothly enough. Husband and wife deceive 
 each other and the world by pretending to be 
 monogamous, while in reality they are polygamous 
 and polyandrou- 
 
 I (the author) desire to refute this sweeping 
 rtion, especially so far as it concerns woman; 
 and I have not lost all faith in the purity of man. 
 If, hov fidelity to marl is the 
 
 ception rather than the rule with man, it is a si 
 of affairs much to be n [ I will 
 
 woman against an equal charge of mc lin- 
 
 quency, although insisting tl: 
 morality should be applied 
 
 made laws favoring the one sex and ignoring jus- 
 tice to the other, whether in Eussia or America, 
 should be abrogated. Xature'c laws are the only 
 true ones; and it is because they have so long 
 been outraged that she is now c: 
 avenged on the tra - and perverter- 
 
 her righteous de: — or rather she is avenging 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 7 
 
 herself and executing her own judgment. But 
 more of this anon. 
 
 Having interrupted our friend in the middle 
 of a sentence as it were, I return to take up 
 the connection. 
 
 "That is wrong, but it may pass. But when, as 
 often happens, husband and wife have taken upon 
 themselves the obligation to live together all their 
 lives — I don't know why, nor do they, either, and 
 they find, after the second month, that they would 
 rather live separate, but, notwithstanding this 
 natural desire, continue to cohabit, then comes that 
 state of things when people fly to drink, or shoot 
 themselves, or kill each other!" 
 
 Presently the lawyer, willing to turn the con- 
 versation, replied : 
 
 "Ah, yes! these critical episodes do arrive in 
 married life. For example, the Posdnicheff affair. 
 The man who killed his wife for jealousy !" 
 
 The nervous gentleman was silent, but changed 
 color. After a pause, he said, suddenly: 
 
 "I see you have guessed who I am." 
 
 "No ! I have not that pleasure," was the reply. 
 
 "The pleasure is not very great. I am Posd- 
 nicheff !" 
 
 Deep silence. He blushed, then grew pale again : 
 
 "After all, what does it matter? Pray, pardon 
 
8 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 
 
 me, I do not wish to be in the way/ 5 and he sat 
 down in his corner. 
 
 Our narrator continues: (chap. III.) : 
 
 "I sat down beside him. The lawyer and lady 
 whispered together. I kept silent. I wanted to 
 talk, but I did not know exactly what to talk about 
 and so passed an hour, till we reached the next 
 -ration. There the lawyer, the lady and the com- 
 mercial traveller got out. Posdnichefl and I were 
 alone 
 
 As in no other way could I give my readers 
 a just description of the situation, or of the strange 
 character with whom we have to deal, I shall 
 make free to follow our narrator verbatim through 
 his third chapter, continuing thus : 
 
 " 'They say it, and they lie, or do not under- 
 stand what they say/ said Posdnichefl. 
 
 '"What are you talking about:' 
 
 " 'The same old story.' 
 
 "He sank on his knees and clasped his temples 
 between his hands. 'Love, marriage, children, 
 lies, lies, all V 
 
 "He got up, pulled down the shade curtain of 
 the lamp, lay down on the cushions, and closed 
 his eyes. A minute passed. 
 
 " 'Then you don't like my company now that 
 you know who I am/ 
 
 " 'I have no such thought/ 
 
Reviewed by a Woman, 
 
 cc c 
 
 T)o you want to go to sleep?' 
 "<No, not at all.' ' 
 " 'Then would you like me to tell you my 
 story ?' 
 
 'Must then the conductor passed through the 
 car. Posdnicheff followed him with suspicious 
 eyes, and did not speak until the man had gone. 
 
 "Then lie began, and continued talking, never 
 ceasing; not even the entrance of strange travellers 
 stopped the stream of his reminiscences. 
 
 "His countenance changed with his story; the 
 face of one minute was not the face of the next. 
 His eves, his mouth, his mustache, nay, his very 
 beard took new forms — still it was always a hand- 
 some and touching face, but in the advancing twi- 
 light, a dissolving view of emotions." 
 
 Here we enter on the fourth chapter, which 
 opens thus : "Well ! I will tell you all my lament- 
 able history. Yes! lamentable— (frightful, and 
 yet the tale is not more dreadful than the result." 
 All of which is fully verified in the recital, but 
 which I shall touch on more briefly, only taking 
 up such points as are really necessary to the pur- 
 pose of this work of review. 
 
 The son of a wealthy nobleman of the steppes — 
 the leader of the nobility in his province, who 
 studied at the university, took his degree and was 
 called to the bar. After living to his thirtieth 
 
IO The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 year "as other men of his class lived — that is to 
 say, a life of license; but in the midst of de- 
 bauchery, he held himself to be a man of irre- 
 proachable morality, an error not at all singular," 
 he concluded to marry. 
 
 Paradoxical rather, to say the least. 
 
 He tells us also that judging from the example 
 of his father and mother, who, he avers, did not 
 deceive each other, he had built up from child- 
 hood — notwithstanding his frequent lapses — "a 
 dream of a noble and poetic conjugal existence." 
 
 "My wife was to be absolute perfection' 9 - 
 
 Not an uncommon demand of men of his cast, 
 who seem to think that purity instead of de- 
 manding its counterpart should accept its an- 
 tipode. 
 
 The fact is, they think a little purity is neces- 
 sary in the family, even if it is all one sided. 
 Bah! 
 
 Thus he goes on: "Our mutual love was to be 
 perfect beyond compare, the purity of our life 
 unblemished. I dreamt of an ideal existence, and 
 was proud of my dream. 
 
 "But I was in no hurry to realize my Utopian 
 ideas. I lived for ten vears of mv manhood what 
 I considered to be a reasonable bachelor's life: 
 I was no seducer of innocence; I had no low or 
 unnatural vices; I did not make debauchery the 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. n 
 
 end and aim of my existence, but enjoyed my 
 life within the bounds of law and order, and inno- 
 cently believed myself a model of good conduct — 
 as that is understood in society/ 5 
 
 (So much for the breadth of social license 
 allowed man.) 
 
 I may be excused if I follow him a little farther 
 in his relation of what he at that time considered 
 honorable dealings with women. 
 
 U 
 
 i 
 
 I kept heart out of the bargain — and paid 
 
 ready money. I avoided those women w 7 ho fell in 
 love with me, because I feared they might bring 
 offsprings and thus burden me in the future ; and 
 if they had children, or were too affectionate, I 
 took care not to seem aware of these little un- 
 pleasantnesses. Living thus I considered myself 
 a thoroughly honorable man." 
 
 (How he could consider himself more honorable 
 or respectable than the women he associated with, 
 a person of unbiased judgment must fail to see; 
 and he appears to see it when too late — when in 
 after years he is reaping the bitter fruit of dread- 
 ful experience. For his own credit and the truth's 
 sake, we quote him here.) 
 
 "Excuse me, but it is horrible, terrible, abomi- 
 nable, this abyss of mistakes and crimes in which 
 we continue to live in spite of what are called 
 the 'rights of woman/ " 
 
12 The M Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 And here our narrator breaks silence : 
 
 "May I ask what you consider the real rights 
 of woman?" and is responded to thus: 
 
 "The question is, What is this especial being, 
 organized differently from man, and how this 
 being, and man, should look at — woman?" 
 
 The reviewer ventures to answer this question: 
 Thy angel, in her rightful place, to lead thee 
 heavenward. Dishonored and degraded, a mill- 
 stone round thy neck to sink thee to the lowest 
 hell. But, mark ye, in woman the scriptural truth 
 shall yet be fulfilled. "The stone which the 
 builders rejected is become the head of the cor- 
 ner." And the day is not far distant that shall 
 witness the dawning of woman's redemption. 
 
 In chapter fifth he begins his explanation as 
 to how he killed his wife, with these words : 
 
 "I hilled her before I ever saw her! 9 
 
 An explanation not as clear to the reader as to 
 the one writing from his own experience, perhaps. 
 Though he might really be said to have contem- 
 plated her murder when he asked her to be his 
 wife; just as clearly as the wolf contemplates 
 devouring the lamb if he can get his clutch on 
 her. For he sought to obtain a wife for the 
 gratification of his sensual desire. That object 
 was paramount or "the neat-fitting jersey, tne 
 bustle, and the wavy hair/' on which he lays all 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 13 
 
 the blame of his "capture," would not have so 
 intoxicated his senses and overpowered his reason 
 that he could not take care of himself. 
 
 Poor innocent offenders ! I fear we shall have 
 to go back to "the good old days" for a precedent, 
 and frame laws for the protection of men against 
 the dangerous devices of feminine fashion; which 
 our poor, much-imposed-upon Posdnicheff looks 
 upon as decoys to ensnare merui&te~the meshes 
 of matrimony. Not only shall everything su- 
 perfluous in dress be suppressed, but the "neat- 
 fitting jersey," which in adapting itself to the 
 form, makes a good figure show to advantage — 
 that, too, must be prohibited; and even if neces- 
 sary "the wavy hair" shall be close shorn. We 
 cannot afford to have our husbands, sons and 
 brothers led astray by any temptation that they 
 are too weak to resist. And the "designing moth- 
 ers," who come in for so large a share of blame, 
 they surely shall be annihilated. 
 
 Though it is not strange that mothers should 
 feel some interest in the fate of their daughters, 
 and, especially, were it to the end of assisting them 
 in making a wise selection, it should be regarded 
 in the light of a sacred duty. But that this is not 
 always the case is too true. In general "to marry 
 well" means to marry wealth ; and the glamour of 
 
14 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 outward appearance is often fully as beguiling 
 to the mother as the daughter. 
 
 Here is the story of how a strong man was 
 "captured," as he terms it: 
 
 "A moonlight excursion on the water decided 
 my fate. The moonlight shining on the river, the 
 beautiful girl sitting close to me, her exquisite 
 figure set off by a close-fitting jersey that showed 
 all its charming contours, and the perfumed ring- 
 lets of her hair that were carried by the breeze 
 across my face, overpowered me, and I jumped 
 to the conclusion I had found my ideal. It 
 seemed to me on that lovely evening that she 
 reciprocated my thoughts and feelings, which were 
 both in the highest state of romance. 
 
 "In reality it was her jersey, that fitted her so 
 neatly, and the wavy hair, and also the subtle 
 intoxication that comes from propinquity. 
 
 "I went home enthusiastic, persuaded that she 
 realized the highest perfection of my dream, and 
 the next day I asked her to be my wife." 
 
 The realization of his dream in what respect? 
 The purely physical — his dream of sensuality. 
 That was all he was looking for in a wife; and 
 therefore he was an adulterer in the fullest .sense 
 of the text he takes for the subject of his argu- 
 ment against love and marriage: "Whosoever 
 
Reviewed by a Woman, 15 
 
 looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath com- 
 mitted adultery with her already in his heart." 
 
 I do not like to accept the belief he would 
 force on us, that all men are "moral ulcers" and 
 that the pure and beautiful youths who feel that 
 marriage is not a joke but a serious matter "may 
 be likened to a white crow — so rarely found;" 
 and that "though mothers feign to believe in the 
 purity of young men, in their innermost soul they 
 know better." Neither will I leave the charge 
 undenied, that women "know well enough that 
 the noblest love depends not on moral qualities, 
 but on physical intimacy." 
 
 I do deny it in the name of pure womanhood 
 generally; and, furthermore, I thank God that 
 I do not live in Kussia, where the noblest love is 
 so ignobly judged. 
 
 For the benefit of our sorely imposed upon 
 Posdnicheff and others of his uncontrollable sus- 
 ceptibility to female influence on the sensual plane 
 (a condition brought on by exclusive cultivation 
 of the base brain and faculties under its control) 
 I here introduce an extract from an ancient tale : 
 
 "The seven wise men of Greece togther with 
 M. Cato and Seneca and a secretary named Maz- 
 zonius, are summoned to Delphi by Apollo at 
 the desire of the Emperor Justinian, and then 
 deliberate on the best mode of suppressing human 
 
1 6 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 misery. " (A subject, to the credit of human 
 nature be it said, that has in all ages been the 
 greatest cause of anxiety to advanced minds.) I 
 will not here give the deliberations in full ; suffice 
 it to say, all manner of strange schemes are pro- 
 posed. Cato^s turn comes and he wishes "that 
 God in his mercy would be pleased to wash away 
 all women from the earth by a new deluge, and 
 at the same time to introduce some new arrange- 
 ment for the continuation of the excellent male 
 sex without female help." 
 
 In which he seems to have anticipated the 
 Miltonic Adam : 
 
 "0 why did God, 
 Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven 
 With spirits masculine, create at last 
 This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
 Of nature, and not fill the world at once 
 With men, as angels, without feminine, 
 Or find some other way to generate mankind?" 
 
 But we are informed that at this proposal of 
 Cato's the whole company manifest the greatest 
 displeasure, and deem it so abominable that they 
 unanimously prostrate themselves on the ground 
 and pray God "that he would graciously vouchsafe 
 to preserve the lovely race of women, and to save 
 the world from a second deluge." 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 17 
 
 At length, after a long debate, the counsel of 
 Seneca prevails: That out of all ranks a society 
 should be composed having for its object the gen- 
 eral welfare of mankind and pursuing it in secret. 
 
 This counsel is adopted; though without much 
 hope on the part of the deputation on account 
 of the desperate condition of "The Age,", who 
 appears before them in person and describes his 
 own wretched state of health. I wonder how 
 it would compare with the present ! 
 
 I cannot forbear mentioning one other propo- 
 sition of this wise council: Thales advises to cut 
 a hole in every man's breast and place a little 
 window in it, by which means it would become 
 possible to look into the heart, to detect hypocrisy 
 and vice, and thus to extinguish it. 
 
 This last, I should think, would meet the favor 
 of all women. Had Posdnicheff been thus treated 
 it might have been his salvation; as some one of 
 his lady associates with whom he had such "honor- 
 able" dealings, might have been candid enough 
 to have enlightened him as to the true inwardness 
 of things in that dark chamber which he had 
 managed to deceive himself into believing was 
 kept always "swept and garnished." 
 
 Alas ! for these whited sepulchres. 
 
 But to proceed with my review. I p^j\i\at find 
 words to express my disgust at such expression 
 
1 8 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 as this: "For the most part all our idyllic ideas 
 of marriage are the consequence of full feeding." 
 As also: "A lazy, luxuriant life will soon bring 
 love up to the boiling point." 
 
 Love! What desecration. 
 
 And, after all, his complaint of being taken 
 captive by the "woman power" in shape of mother, 
 daughter and dressmaker; on the opposite page 
 he represents the modern matrimonial plan thus: 
 "It is simply to set out the marriageable girls 
 in rows like tulips and to pick and choose. The 
 girls wait and think, but dare not say, 'Take me, 
 young man/ We men walk up and down and select 
 the goods according to our fancy; and yet we 
 talk about the rights of woman, of the freedom 
 of man, and other such topics to please the gallery. 
 Woman is a mere slave, exposed in the open 
 market." 
 
 Who is it then that should complain, man or 
 woman? And is it any wonder, under these cir- 
 cumstances, that mothers should feci interested 
 in the disposal of their precious wares ; and desir- 
 ous, if their daughters must be sold into slavery, 
 to aid them in choosing as good a master as 
 possible ? 
 
 Again: "The real wrong of woman is not that 
 she is deprived of the ballot, nor excluded from 
 the bench, but that she is deprived of the right 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 19 
 
 to her own body! the right of choosing instead 
 of being chosen." 
 
 But just as we, his feminine readers, are begin- 
 ning to feel grateful to him for his generous 
 advocacy of woman's natural right, we turn the 
 leaf, and here he is raving again over woman's 
 enslaving influence over man through personal 
 adornment: "For a long time past I have felt 
 uneasv when I saw a woman too well dressed, 
 whether it be a woman of the people with her 
 red shawl and her skirt tucked up through her 
 pocket holes, or a woman of society dressed for a 
 ball." 
 
 (No doubt an Indian squaw with a red blanket 
 around her dusky form would have the same 
 effect. ) 
 
 "The sight fairly terrifies me. I see the danger 
 to men; I see something contrary to law, and I 
 am tempted to call the police. I am not joking: 
 the time will come, and perhaps soon, when the 
 world will wonder how any society can exist 
 wherein such vile actions are permitted as those 
 which appeal to our sensuality by such excess of 
 personal adornment. It is worse than digging 
 pitfalls in the public streets for the unwary to 
 fall into." 
 
 At this point I begin to look on it as a confused 
 jumble of ideas blown off by explosion of the 
 
20 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 brain of some pitiful licentious crank; and wonder 
 how Tolstoi could ever bring himself to put such 
 stuff in print. But, on second thought, I compare 
 this experience of Posdnicheff with King Solomon's 
 "search for wisdom/' and conclude, as it agrees 
 exactly, both in experience and conclusions, that 
 perhaps all men of that type are wisdom seekers. 
 
 "And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to 
 know madness and folly — I sought in mine heart 
 to give myself unto wine (yet acquainting mine 
 heart with wisdom) ; and to lay hold on folly till 
 I might see what was good for the sons of men, 
 which they should do under the heaven all the 
 davs of their life. 
 
 "I applied mine heart to know, and to search 
 and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things, 
 and to know the wickedness of folly, even of 
 foolishness and madness: And I find more bitter 
 than death the woman whose heart is snares and 
 nets, and her hands as bands ; whoso pleaseth God 
 shall escape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken 
 by her/' 
 
 Posdnicheff's wail exactly. It seems shocking, 
 yet one cannot but be amused at the persistence 
 of Solomon in his search for wisdom and righteous 
 women ; especially as he seemed so bent on search- 
 ing for righteousness in the place where he least 
 expected to find it; and then complains that he 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 21 
 
 has not found one righteous woman in a thousand ! 
 Not even, I suppose, among the thousand wives 
 and mistresses scripture record gives, was there 
 a righteous one; and the one righteous man in 
 a thousand we will presume was himself; as, no 
 doubt, like Posdnicheif, he considered himself 
 honorable in his dealings with women. And, 
 especially, he being king, of course they were 
 honored by receiving his attention. I don't even 
 think of apologizing for thus making free to 
 criticise a prominent scriptural character. And 
 though "sacred writ" informs us that "King Solo- 
 mon loved many strange women," I take the same 
 exception to the term love being thus desecrated 
 in Solomon's case as in that of Posdnicheff. That 
 passion which gives man "no pre-eminence above 
 a beast," or, indeed, through the perversion of 
 which he has degraded himself below the brute 
 creation, should be called by its right name. And, 
 to tell the plain truth, woman owes her position 
 of inferiority largely to the teaching and example 
 of those Old Testament characters. But for the 
 fact that evolution has naturally advanced man 
 and broadened his ideas we should have been 
 crushed out of existence in penalty of "Mother 
 Eve's" sin. I, for one, am getting tired of that 
 old cry, "The woman tempted me !" 
 
 Let man once set woman free, and give her an 
 
22 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 equal chance in the race of life, and she will prove 
 +-he truth of Miltonic Eve : 
 
 "Though all ly me is lost, such favor 
 I unworthy am vouchsafed, 
 By me the Promised Seed shall all restore/ 9 
 
 That "Promised Seed" not alone the man-Christ, 
 Jesus; but the Christ of the second coming, in 
 the form of Redeemed, Purified and Elevated 
 Womanhood. 
 
 Woman must rule in the domain of sex. This 
 is her grand prerogative, the God-given law of her 
 nature. Even brute instinct teaches this. And 
 in the days of her freedom, while she is mistress 
 of her own person, nature's laws are respected and 
 man bows at her honored shrine and walks obedi- 
 ent to her will, never daring to presume to en- 
 croach on her most sacred right. But as soon as 
 she is induced to bow her head beneath the yoke, 
 God's laws are set aside and man's law substituted. 
 
 Under the name of "holy marriage" the defini- 
 tion of virtue is changed, and the holy function of 
 sex is desecrated to abnormal uses ; and woman in- 
 stead of being considered a medium of Creative 
 Power is made a slave to man's unbridled passion, 
 thus unfitting her for the grandest purpose of 
 maternity. 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 23 
 
 Woman in her rightful place, in the Langua 
 of a noble writer, "is man's reasonable companion, 
 not the slave of his passion ; the end of her being 
 
 is not merely to gratify his loose desires, but to 
 st him in the toils of life, to soothe him with 
 her tenderness and recompense him with her soft 
 endearments." I add: and to make it her aim. 
 in all things, to cultivate his higher nature and 
 draw him heavenward. This, however, she can 
 only do by cultivating herself in the same direc- 
 tion. I think I cannot do better than to again 
 introduce an extract from Milton's Paradise Lost. 
 The angel to Adam in reply to his admiration of 
 Eve : 
 
 "What admirest thou, what transports thee so? 
 
 An outside fair, no doubt, and worthy well 
 
 Thy cherishing, thy admiration and thy love; 
 
 Not thy subjection. Weigh with her thyself, then 
 
 value. 
 ****** 
 
 But if the sense of touch whereby mankind 
 Is propagated, seem such dear delight 
 Beyond all other; think the same vouchsafed 
 To cattle and each beast, which would not be 
 
 de common and divulged, if aught 
 Therein enjoyed were worthy to subdue 
 soul of man, or passion in him move. 
 
24 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 What higher in her society thou find'st 
 Attractive, human ,,.0%Lional , love still. 
 In 'loving thou dost ivell, in passion not, 
 Wherein true love consists not. Love refines 
 The thoughts and heart enlarges, hath his seat 
 In reason and is judicious, is the scale 
 By which to heavenly love thou mayst ascend. 
 Not sunk in carnal pleasures; for which cause 
 Amonn the leasts §o mate for thee ivas found. 
 
 Adam. 
 
 To love thou bi&mest me not; for love thou sayest 
 Leads up to heaven, is both way and guide; 
 Bear with me then if lawful what I ash 
 Love not the heavenly spirits, and how their love 
 Express they? by looks only? or do they mix 
 Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch? 
 
 The Angel. 
 
 Let it suffice thee that thou know'st us happy 
 And without love no happiness. 
 Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy' st 
 (And pure thou wert created) we enjoy 
 In eminence, and obstacle find none. 
 Easier than air with air if spirits embrace. 
 Total they mix, union of pure with pure 
 Desiring. * * * * But I can no more: 
 ****** 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 25 
 
 Hesperian sets my signal to depart. 
 
 Be strong, live happy, and lure! but first of all 
 
 Him, who to lore is to obey, and keep 
 His great command; take heed lest passion sway 
 Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will 
 Would not admit; thine, and of all thy sons 
 The weal or ivoe in thee is placed. Beware!" 
 
 I think the above tells all that can be needed in 
 the direction of true sex union; and had it been 
 heeded ever since it was spoken, the world would 
 have been different to-day, and the pitiful wail of 
 Posdnicheff would not have come up from a lust- 
 murdered soul. 
 
 Here I resume my review, which. I shall take 
 up at the opening of the tenth chapter. 
 
 "That was the way I was caught. I was what 
 people call in love. Not only did she appear to me 
 an angel, but I looked upon myself as a 'rare and 
 perfect chrysolite/ " 
 
 As it would be doing a relentant spirit injustice 
 to stop here, I go on farther with the quotation: 
 "It is a sad fact that there is no wretch so low but 
 that he can find one more degraded than himself, 
 and pride himself on his superiority ; that was my 
 case ; I had not married for money, or for power- 
 ful connections, as I have known many to do. I 
 was rich, she was poor. I had not married to 
 
26 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 continue the polygamous life of a bachelor. I hon- 
 estly intended to be faithful to my wife, and I 
 plumed myself on my virtue. I was simply a cad 
 who thought himself a Bayard." 
 
 He tells of their engagement and its final con- 
 summation. 
 
 "We found it extremely difficult to keep up a 
 conversation. A conjugal chat was a labor of 
 Sisyphus. We had literally nothing to talk 
 about." 
 
 It is very evident— the reason ?i this: — his 
 faculties, even his very tongue, were lust-bound; 
 and she, poor girl, was hypnotized into dumbness 
 by the base magnetic influence he held over her in 
 a carnal direction. Had there been love worthy 
 the name it would have acted as an inspiration be- 
 tween them; but even though on her side the 
 thought of sensuality was not prominent she was 
 powerless to turn the current of his impure 
 thoughts in another direction than their natural 
 filthy channel. Who would not sympathize with 
 this poor lamb thus unmercifully led to the 
 slaughter ? 
 
 Of the marriage ceremony and bridal adorn- 
 ments, he speaks thus : "Is it not like an auction- 
 in which a virgin sold to a rake is crowned with 
 flowers ?" 
 
 We must admit that funereal weeds would be 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 27 
 
 more appropriate on such an occasion as that; and 
 who can dispute that in many respects our so-called 
 holy marriage system is a hollow mockery? Still. 
 I am not prepared to say that virtue does not ex- 
 ist, or that the relation between the sexes cannot 
 be purified and made holy. All men are not rakes, 
 nor all women wanton, as this depraved pessimist 
 would fain induce^ or compel us to believe. 
 
 Neither has nature made a mistake ; but through 
 ignorance or wilfulness man has refused to obey 
 her laws and brought misery on himself and untold 
 suffering on woman ; to say nothing of the fearful 
 consequence to posterity. 
 
 A brief review of the eleventh chapter describes 
 the honeymoon, with more than intimation of hor- 
 rors at which a brute might well blush, but which, 
 though containing much truth, we have no use 
 for here; but it plainly shows on which side the 
 brutality exists, the poor young wife being the 
 bound victim. The "marriage altar" is a very ap- 
 propriate name. He admits all this, and as an 
 offset proposes the other extreme — to leap at a 
 single bound to the Buddhist's Nirvana, the high- 
 est state of purity; but which he wrongfully de- 
 scribes as non-existence — annihilation; while the 
 true definition is, that the soul, developed beyond 
 the need of further incarnation in limited form, 
 Karma, the mortal clinging, is outgrown, and 
 
28 The 4 ' Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 hence "will no more make new houses," but the 
 soul; freed from earth becomes so expanded that 
 "the universe grows T." He must be made aware, 
 however, that the Buddhist's Nirvana is reached 
 by slow degrees through a series of incarnations. 
 In the words of Holland : 
 
 "Heaven is not reached at a single bound, 
 We build the ladder on which toe rise/' 
 
 Aye • and must climb it round by round. 
 
 To make clear the point under review, to those 
 who have not read "Kreutzer Sonata," I quote in 
 brietf the conversation between the narrator and his 
 misanthropic travelling companion, preceding this 
 reference to Nirvana: 
 
 Our narrator objects to such a vicious construc- 
 tion being put on the exercise of what he terms a 
 natural function whereby the race is perpetuated, 
 and says in astonishment: 
 
 "But the world must be peopled." 
 
 "I do not see the necessity," is the reply. 
 
 "But the human race could not exist." 
 
 "Then let it perish." 
 
 A student of Theosophy can at once perceive the 
 drift of his argument, but it is hardly coherent 
 enough for general comprehension. 
 
 The great mistake is, his considering Nirvana 
 

 Reviewed by a Woman. 29 
 
 as a resolving into the "infinite void" and becoming 
 lost — annihilated. 
 
 We quote from "Light of Asia": 
 
 "If any teach Nirvana is to cease, 
 Say unto such they lie. 
 If any teach Nirvana is to live, 
 Say unto such they err; not knowing this, 
 Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps, 
 Nor lifeless, timeless bliss/' 
 
 Thus, it is rather a condition of indescribable 
 existence that no mortal language can express, — in- 
 comparable and inexpressible bliss. One with that 
 glory spoken of in scripture, which "eye hath not 
 seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into 
 the heart of man to conceive." It is attained only 
 by those who dying leave 
 
 "A life count closed, whose ills are dead and quit, 
 
 Whose good is quick and mighty far and near 
 
 So that fruits follow it. 
 
 No need hath such to live as ye name life, 
 
 That which began in him when he began 
 
 Is finished; he hath wrojught the purpose through 
 
 Of what did make him- man. 
 
 Never shall yearnings torture him, nor si/ns 
 
 Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys or woes 
 
 Invade his safe eternal peace: Nor deaths 
 
 And lives recur." 
 
30 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 Jesus' dying words, "It is finished/' implies 
 the same. 
 
 I did not set out to write a dissertation on 
 Buddhism; still, I feel inclined to make this 
 "bomb" effective and carry out the assassin's aim in 
 the throwing. I do this the more readily because 
 I believe it was prompted by a good motive and 
 aimed at social corruption,, the glaring vice of the 
 age. 
 
 Posdnicheff seems not to have attained the point 
 of spiritual perception in any sense. 
 
 As thus : "The chief end of man and humanity 
 at large is happiness; and to obtain that, there is 
 one law that must be obeyed. This law is the 
 union of beings. This union is obstructed by the 
 passions, and the strongest and the vilest of pas- 
 sions is sexual love. Because if the passions 
 disappear, and corporeal love with them, this union 
 will be accomplished. Then humanity will have 
 fulfilled its destiny, and have no longer reason to 
 exist." 
 
 Our narrator here inquires : "What is to become 
 of humanity while it is obeying the law ?*' 
 
 "There is always a safety valve, the token that 
 the law is not accomplished, and that sexual love 
 still exists. Through this love generations will 
 be born, of which one will fulfill the law. Then 
 the human race will cease, for it is impossible 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 31 
 
 to imagine life and perfect union as co-existent." 
 A rather poor argument to induce to a higher 
 development. Xow, where our Posdnicheff has 
 "union of beings/' his critic would carry it higher, 
 and say, union of being — divine harmony; hu- 
 manity becoming more and more spiritualized, 
 until carnal conditions shall be outgrown and the 
 very atmosphere of earth spiritualized. Then all 
 "sins being slain we come Nirvana's verge unto/' 
 which entering we become merged into the union 
 of being and begin to realize life in its fulness. 
 
 But fearful that the Karma still existent will 
 require "new houses" for some generations to come, 
 I see no better way at this stage than to urge the 
 necessity of building better for the future. Let 
 me say then to you, my sisters: for it is to you 
 I especially address this work — a woman to 
 women : 
 
 Build well the temple, ye mothers of men, 
 For know ye are building for glory or shame; 
 Know ye are building for weakness or might, 
 Know ye are building for darkness or light. 
 God has ordained you his workers to be, 
 Weighed in his balance your product must be. 
 Judged by his justice the work ye have wrought, 
 Paid by his measure the meed ye have sought. 
 
X2 The " Kreutzer Sonata 
 
 Build ye, 0, build to the honor of God 
 Temples for his Holy Spirit's abode; 
 Lay your foundation in wisdom and love 
 And beautiful angels will smile from above. 
 Building for Heaven, ye build well for Earth. 
 Mankind's great need is a holier birth; 
 Nations are groaning through evils inwrought, 
 And with dire vengeance even heaven seems 
 
 fraught. 
 Oh! we have builded in weakness and shame. 
 Pity us, heaven! we were not to blame 
 Groping in darkness we knew not the way; 
 Light is now breaking; we welcome the day. 
 Dawn of an era by prophets foretold; 
 Sung of by bards, voiced by sages of eld; 
 Of which angelic hosts sang on Bethlehem's plain. 
 An era of "Peace and good will to all men." 
 Woman, through thee this grand era must come, 
 Or prophets, bards, sages, as well might be dumb; 
 Can figs grow from thistles? or grapes from the 
 
 thorn ? 
 Or from grovelling passio?is can angels be born? 
 Can the kingdom of heaven descend from above 
 Till attracted to earth by the spirit of love ? 
 Can striving and envy and warring e'er cease 
 Till wisdom beget the sweet spirit of peace? 
 0, haste thee to cast out these demons of sin, 
 And say, in love's power— "I will, be thou clean," 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 33 
 
 Call heaven to aid thee and guide thee aright, 
 And go forth, in thy womanhood armed, to the 
 
 fight. 
 Aye; to fight 'gainst base passion! and conquer 
 
 through love, 
 And man lifted higher thy labor shall prove. 
 And nations shall bless thee for what thou hast 
 
 done, 
 And glory shall crown thee, more bright than the 
 
 sun. 
 For patriot souls will then rise in their might 
 And build the grand Temple of Justice and Right, 
 Which could not be built until woman should come 
 To aid in the work from foundation to dom\e. 
 
 Woman must be allowed to fulfil her mission 
 and lead in this work of the world's redemption; 
 and it is man's duty to sustain and strengthen 
 her, and aid her in every possible manner. 
 
 The creative faculty — the most God-like power 
 bestowed on mortal beings, must be lifted from 
 the mire and cleansed and purified until the pure 
 white marble statue is a true representative, and 
 no blush need mantle the cheek at the thought of 
 sex. "To the pure all things are pure/' 
 
 I would that the text of "Kreutzer Sonata'' 
 might stand out in letters of fire before man's 
 vision continually, and ring in his ears with 
 
34 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 thunder peal until its warning should be both 
 heard and heeded. 
 
 As heretofore there has been but little to quote 
 in the way of moral instruction, from our friend 
 Posdnicheff, I give an extract from chapter twelve 
 to his credit. 
 
 "In order that people may remain moral even 
 in their sexual relations, they must set up as an 
 example complete chastity. But in striving toward 
 that aim, man must crucify the flesh. Once he 
 arrives at the degree of self-mortification we may 
 have the truly moral marriage. 
 
 "But if man, as in the present state of society,, 
 looks for mere physical love, he clothes his desires 
 with pretexts under the form of marriage, and it 
 becomes nothing more than legalized debauchery, t 
 He will never know anything but the life of im- 
 morality, to which I gave way myself and forced 
 on my wife, that which we call domestic happiness. 
 Eeflect how perverted one's ideas must be when the 
 greatest happiness of man, liberty and chastity, 
 is looked upon as a thing at once pitiable and 
 ridiculous; when the highest ideal of woman, 
 purity and virginity, provokes jeer and laughter. 
 
 "How often do young girls sacrifice their purity 
 to this Moloch of public opinion and marry men 
 utterly beneath them rather than remain maids — 
 that is to say, superior beings. Rather than con- 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 35 
 
 tinue in that state of ideal perfection they throw 
 themselves away." 
 
 There is much food for reflection in the above. 
 
 He then resumes the sickening details of the 
 honeymoon, which resulted in his wife becoming 
 melancholy, and when he sought to know the 
 reason and took her in his arms to comfort her, 
 she dreys away from him and wept. He would 
 know what caused her tears. I give his own 
 language : 
 
 "She could not tell me. She was nervous; out 
 of sorts. Probably this very nervousness suggested 
 to her the ignominy of our relations to each other. 
 But she could not find words to express her 
 feelings. I began to question her. She said she 
 was fretting for her mother. Her words did not 
 ring true. I tried to console her without talking 
 of her parents. It did not strike me that she was 
 simply overcome, and that the fretting after her 
 mother was only an evasion. She paid no at- 
 tention to me, and I accused her of caprice. I 
 began gently to chide her. She ceased crying 
 and reproached me bitterly for my selfishness 
 and cruelty. I stared at her. Her features ex- 
 pressed hatred — hatred against me! I cannot 
 express the horror I felt at this sight. 
 
 "What, thought I, love is the union of two 
 souls, and my wife hates me ! Me ? Oh ! It is 
 
36 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 impossible. She is not herself! I tried to calm 
 her. I found I was fighting an indestructible and 
 cold hostility, and without taking time to reflect 
 I showed my anger. 
 
 "We said unkind things to each other. The 
 impression of this first quarrel was terrible. I 
 call it a quarrel, but that is not the proper word: 
 It was the opening of an abyss between us. Our 
 love had spent itself in excessive sensuality." 
 
 Eeconciliation finally comes, but only lasts a 
 short time until there is another quarrel, followed 
 by a short truce. So it continues until they seem 
 to be periodical. Is it strange though — when he 
 tells us that he never thought of the intellectual 
 life of the woman he had taken to be his life com- 
 panion ? Here another detail of the situation must 
 be given in his own words: 
 
 "And not only did I forget her intellectual life, 
 but even her physical. I wondered at the origin of 
 our enmity, and yet after all how clear it is ! This 
 enmity was nothing more than a protest of human 
 nature against the brute who assaulted it. It 
 could not be otherwise. Our hate was like that 
 of accomplices in crime: for was it not a crime 
 that when this poor woman had begun her pil- 
 grimage of maternity her footsteps should be 
 clogged by the weight of man's brutality ? 
 
 "You fancy I am straying from my subject. 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 37 
 
 Not at all. I simply relate the events which led 
 to the murder of my wife. The fook-! They 
 believe I killed my wife on the fifth of October. 
 But I had slain her long before, as they are slaying 
 theirs at this moment. * * * * 
 
 "The most wonderful thing of all is that nobody 
 seems to understand it, a thing so plain, so evident 
 that even a doctor might see it, yet nobody wants 
 to understand it: man lives for pleasure and 
 despises the first law of nature — children. * * 
 
 "Woman with us is expected to be at the same 
 time mother, mistress and nurse, but her strength 
 is not equal to. this triple function/' 
 
 He might have added the 'fourfold burden of 
 household drudge in the majority of homes; and 
 even in stringent circumstances, having often to 
 deny herself the nourishment necessary to her 
 condition. If in high life, where luxury and every 
 earthly comfort abounds, these wrongs inflicted 
 on woman are so outrageous, what of the working 
 class? Aye, and the miserable poor? — women, all 
 the same ! 
 
 But we are interested in letting our friend 
 Posdnicheff continue his say. He is talking to 
 the purpose now: 
 
 "If people only considered what a wonderful 
 work is gestation ! In the mother is formed the 
 being which is to continue our line, and this holy 
 
38 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 
 
 work is obstructed — by what ? It is horrible even 
 to think it, and yet people talk of liberty, of the 
 rights of woman. It is like cannibals fattening 
 their prisoners to eat them, and promising them 
 that their rights and liberty shall be respected. 
 
 "It is said that animals know that their different 
 species are perpetuated by descent, and that in 
 this respect they follow a well defined law. It is 
 only man who does not, and will not know this 
 fact. He careL for nothing but his pleasure, the 
 King of Nature — Man ! Note well, that the beasts 
 of the field couple only when they can reproduce 
 their species; but the ignoble King of Xature — 
 whenever he is so disposed; and not content with 
 this, he dignifies this proclivity with the name of 
 love/ 
 
 "He kills one-half of the human race. The 
 woman, who ought to be his helper in the great 
 movement of humanity toward liberty, he makes, 
 not a friend, but an enemv." 
 
 I feel truly grateful for this plain expression of 
 truths worthy the deepest consideration of all 
 thoughtful readers, whether men or women. 
 
 Chapter fourteen is principally devoted to 
 criticism of woman's superficial education and also 
 the pernicious effect of impressing young girls 
 with the idea that to marrv is the sole end and 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 39 
 
 aim of their existence. In which I agree with 
 him, but protest against the exaggerated sensual 
 coloring. But he is so morbidly sensitive in that 
 direction that every action of woman is viewed 
 in that light. 
 
 We next find him writhing under the pangs 
 of jealousy — without cause, apparently; for, as 
 yet, he gives us no reason to think there was even 
 the shadow of a doubt of his wife's fidelity to 
 him. 
 
 Besides he represents her as a devoted mother, 
 desirous of nursing her infant, and even persisting 
 in giving it part nourishment in defiance of the 
 physician's objection — that it was an injury to 
 her health. He is jealous of the doctor as an 
 advisor, jealous also of her love for her children, 
 as, to use his own words, "one after another they 
 made their appearance without loss of time/' He 
 even finds fault with the anxiety mothers feel 
 for the welfare of their children. 
 
 "Women," he says, "love their offspring, and love 
 is the parent of fear for the health and life of 
 their children. Love, the soul's best thing, comes 
 to them in the guise of danger. 
 
 "Woman can see nothing but beauty in her 
 child. She brings him into the world in pain and 
 travail ; but what pretty little fingers, what dainty 
 
40 The ' Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 little feet, what a sweet smile ! its dear little body, 
 its cunning little coo, and oh ! how it crows !" 
 
 Yes, and the mother feels a heavenly delight 
 in these charms, which to her are not merely 
 outward. Her soul caresses her darling in loving 
 joy that none but a mother can know. She feels 
 that enclosed in that lovely form is a precious 
 treasure committed to her keeping. Ah ! if she 
 could only be instructed and allowed to do her 
 best work. 
 
 But what must we think of such babbling as 
 this : "Among poultry or cattle the chicken droops 
 its head, the calf dies, and the hen clucks awhile ; 
 the cow moos, and they live on their vacant, for- 
 getful existence. With us if a baby fall sick, then 
 is the doctor to be called in, the nurse to be 
 engaged, and the whole house to be disturbed. 
 If it dies there are no more little rosy fingers, 
 no more pretty little feet, and then to what end 
 all this suffering endured at its birth?" 
 
 The foregoing is but the continuation of a 
 r idiculous satire on woman's over-anxiety for the 
 health and life of hex children, in which this also 
 occurs : 
 
 "One is tempted to think they would have pre- 
 ferred children like India-rubber dolls, who would 
 never fall sick, who would never die^ and could 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 41 
 
 always bo mended. How their poor brains 
 muddled !" Thus he concludes this harangue: 
 
 "The mere animal has no imagination, and 
 cannot torture itself by thinking how it might 
 have saved its offspring if it had only done this, 
 that or the other. And its grief, which is merely 
 physical, lasts but a little while; it is only a 
 passing regret, and not that deep-seated feeling 
 born of idleness and satiety that rises to the pitch 
 of despair/ 5 
 
 (At about this juncture a woman w r ishes for the 
 power to inflict on this satirical demon every pang 
 that woman ever suffered — physically or mentally.) 
 To the question of our narrator: "But, then, 
 what must one do, according to your view of the 
 case, to rear children after the human fashion?" 
 we have this reply : 
 
 "Simply to love them after man's fashion/' Bv 
 this he means, I suppose, and judges all men by 
 himself; that such treasures he would gladly lay 
 up in heaven. 
 
 Allow me to quote him a little farther on this 
 subject of woman's weakness: 
 
 "We read of acts of heroism achieved by women 
 who have sacrificed their children through exalted 
 motives of faith or superstition. But these seem 
 to us- as stories from an antique world, in which 
 we have no part. Nevertheless, I believe that if 
 
42 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 a woman have not an ideal to which she can 
 sacrifice the mere animal sentiment, she will waste 
 herself in chimerical efforts to preserve the mere 
 bodily health of her children, aided in this task 
 by her medical attendant, and she will suffer the 
 inevitable consequence of her folly. 
 
 "Thus it was with my wife. Whether there be 
 one child or five the feeling is the same. Perhaps 
 five are better than one. Life is embittered by 
 fear of one's children. Not only on account of 
 their real or imagine ry illnesses, but by their very 
 presence. I know that during all my married life 
 my comfort and happiness depended on the health, 
 the well being and the education of my children. 
 Parents have no rights that children are bound 
 to respect," 
 
 (In this they are but retaliating ante-natal 
 injustice. As, certain it is, that under the existing 
 state of things, an unborn child's most sacred 
 rights are most condemnedly outraged, and that 
 continually.) 
 
 "A regular, orderly life has no charms for the 
 young, and so domestic life hangs by a hair. 
 Fancy being told suddenly, without adequate prep- 
 aration, that little Basil has got a pain in his 
 stomach, or that Lisette has an attack of croup. 
 Instantly everything is abandoned ; everything 
 forgotten. Nothing is thought of but the doctor, 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 43 
 
 warm baths and an even temperature. You cannot 
 converse with a friend without being interrupted 
 by little Peter anxiously asking if he may venture 
 to eat some green fruit, or, if it is absolutely 
 necessary for him to change his shirt. Or, else 
 it is the nurse maid rushing in with a baby scream- 
 ing violently for want of its regular meals. 
 
 "The order of the family life is completely 
 upset. What matters it how you live, move, or 
 have your being ? Nothing matters but the health 
 of the little ones, and, thanks to the doctors, who 
 strive to restore that health, mostly with no effect, 
 your life is made a burden to you. Scarcely has 
 one danger passed than another appears, and all 
 the fuss begins anew. You feel like a man on 
 a ship foundering in midocean. Sometimes I have 
 suspected that the whole thing was invented by 
 my wife to intimidate me, because she never failed 
 to turn the situation to her own uses. I have 
 fancied that everything she said and did at these 
 times was meant for my subjugation, but now 
 I know that her only thoughts were for her 
 children. The situation was painful for us both, 
 but for her, her babies gave her the means of 
 forgetting everything else in a sort of mental 
 intoxication. 
 
 "In the old times women consoled themselves 
 
44 The 4< Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 with the belief, 'The Lord hath given, the Lord 
 hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the 
 Lord/ They consoled themselves with the thought 
 that the soul of the departed had returned to Him 
 who gave it. That it was better to die in innocence 
 than to live in sin. If women had such a com- 
 fortable faith to support them they might take 
 their misfortunes less to heart ; but, alas ! faith 
 has gone out of fashion with powdered hair and 
 patches. But, still, as human nature must believe 
 in something they believe in physic, and not only 
 in physic but in physicians. ***•.♦ And 
 all beacuse woman is like a wild rose, charming 
 to look at, but untrained. She has lost her belief 
 in God, and put her faith in the doctor who 
 charges the highest fee. Else she would know 
 that disease is not so very terrible, because it 
 cannot affect what alone is worth loving— the soul. 
 The worst that can happen is what we all must 
 submit to — dissolution of this bodv. Without 
 faith in God, woman's love grovels in the mire; 
 all thedr energies are concentrated to prolong an 
 existence that must end sooner or later, but which 
 fools believe the doctors can prolong indefinitely. 
 "So it came about that children, instead of 
 softening the relations between us, drove us farther 
 apart. The older they grew the more they caused 
 continual disputes. Each of us had a favorite; 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 45 
 
 mine was the eldest boy, Basil; hers the youngest 
 daughter, Lisette. When these children were of an 
 age when character begins to show itself, we 
 dragged them into our quarrels. The poor children 
 were none the better for this, but in our continual 
 bickering we never thought about them. The 
 little girl was devoted to me, but the boy, who 
 bore a striking likeness to his mother both in 
 mind and person, often added to my irritation 
 against her/' 
 
 There is much meaning underlving all this 
 character painting, and these episodes of domestic 
 life in inharmonious marriage relations. There 
 is so much of truth in them that I feel the public 
 should have the full benefit of the author's purpose 
 in setting them forth. That the book was written 
 for a high moral purpose I have not a doubt, and 
 I hope to extend its effort for good. 
 
 "Leaning on her children, my wife was supreme. 
 I did know then she could not be otherwise, because 
 when we were wedded she was morally my superior, 
 as every young girl must be superior to man 
 because she is purer than he. * * * * * 
 
 "The wife who brings children into the world, 
 nourishing them at her bosom, perceives clearly 
 enough that her part in life is more important 
 and far more serious than that of the man who 
 
46 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 sits in the councils of the emperor, or on the 
 bench. 
 
 •J* *J» *.t» «!• •£* *i» •&• *£* *&» »£* *S* 
 
 "But the husband is not of my opinion on this 
 point; not only does he refuse to recognize the 
 wife's superiority, but he looks down on her from 
 his superior bodily altitude with lordly contempt. 
 
 "My wife despised my political labors, because 
 she bore and nursed children, and I, on my part, 
 looked upon woman's work as a pitiful thing only 
 fit to be laughed at." 
 
 This is by no means a usual thing on woman's 
 part, for, although it is common for man to look 
 on woman's work with contempt, one might say, 
 because it is "non productive," woman always 
 considers man's labor of great importance, and 
 wishes that like him she could make her labor 
 pay — earn something. She chafes under the 
 feeling that she must ask her husband for every 
 dollar she needs, and feel in every way that she 
 is dependent on him for support. 
 
 Even our wealthy and aristocratic Fosdnicheff 
 in speaking of the second quarrel between himself 
 and wife, says: "It was some miserable question 
 of money, and I never haggled on that score; 
 meanness was not part of my nature. I remember 
 only that in answer to some remark of mine she 
 insinuated that I wanted to domineer over her 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 47 
 
 by the power of my money, and it was on thai 
 score I based my only right over her. In fact, 
 something so extremely stupid and base, that 
 it entered neither into her character nor mine." 
 
 I do not agee with him. It was in his character 
 to rule over woman by the power of his money; 
 and in proof quote from his own account of his 
 dealings with women, during his bachelorhood : 
 
 "I counted myself an honorable man because 
 I kept heart out of the bargain — and paid ready 
 money." 
 
 Besides, in his malicious bitterness at the 
 frequent calls for the doctor, he often makes 
 mention of the fee in some such sarcastic manner 
 as this, "he pocketed his fee and left." 
 
 Hence, no doubt, the poor wife was often made 
 to feel she had incurred an unnecessary expense. 
 And what would be more cutting to a wife and 
 mother, than to think that the husband and father 
 should make the life and health of his family a 
 secondary consideration ? 
 
 There is something, too, most strikingly strange 
 in this matter of women, even in the census, 
 being classed as non-producers. Women non- 
 producers ! Like printing as "the art preservative 
 of all arts," woman is the producer of all the 
 "world's producers ! Deny it who can. 
 
 0, woman, what insults thou hast had to endure ! 
 
48 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 When will the day of thy deliverance come ? Who 
 shall free 11s from the power of this curse — man- 
 made laws for our ruling? But to resume: 
 "Towards the fourth year of our marriage we 
 were tacitly agreed on one point only — that we 
 could never agree on the most simple subjects. 
 We held to our opinions with obstinacy. Among 
 strangers we would talk on all sorts of subjects, 
 but in private we were dumb. Our conversation, 
 when alone, never extended beyond that rudi- 
 mentary language that I am convinced all animals 
 of the same species are capable of using to each 
 other, 'What o'clock is it?' 'It is time to go to 
 bed/ 'What's for dinner to-day?' 'Anything in 
 the paper ? 'We must send for the doctor, Lisette 
 has a sore throat/ That was the style of our 
 intercourse. The moment we ventured to trans- 
 gress this narrow limit in conversation a new 
 outbreak followed. The presence of a third person 
 smoothed matters a little, and served as a sort 
 of go-between. I have no doubt but that my wife 
 thought herself a very ill-used woman. As for 
 me, I looked upon myself as a saint compared 
 with her. 
 
 "The attacks of what we call by the name of 
 love recurred regularly as before; * * * * 
 but they never lasted long and generally gave 
 way to periods of causeless irritation arising from 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 49 
 
 the merest trifles. * * * * My life was a 
 continual boiling up of indignation. I fidgeted 
 about the way she poured out tea. I growled if 
 she trotted her foot. I found fault with the way 
 she ate her soup, or, if she blew her coffee to cool 
 it, and I counted her slightest actions as crimes. 
 It did not occur to me that these periods of 
 irritation followed very closely our fits of love. 
 
 "We did not see that our love and hate were 
 but two phases of the same passion." 
 
 As these points all speak for themselves and 
 need no comments, allow me to continue the extract 
 a little farther. "My wife sought oblivion in 
 eager absorbing occupations, in the care of her 
 household, in the dress of herself and her children, 
 in their education and health. She devoted herself 
 to all these, as if her very life and that of her 
 children depended on nothing else. I saw plainly 
 that in all this she sought forgetfulness, as I did 
 in hunting, gambling and politics." (We can 
 now clearly understand why his wife despised his 
 "political labors." He was of the class of political 
 laborers numerous in every nation, who are at 
 the bottom of all our political corruption.) 
 . "But I had other solaces; tobacco, which I 
 smoked incessantly ; wine, which I drank to excess, 
 but which never affected my head." (Of course 
 not.) "Brandy or vodka "before each meal, and 
 
50 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 champagne or Burgandy with every course, so that 
 my senses wandered in a perpetual fog." (Still, 
 he asserts his head was not at all affected.) * * * 
 
 "Charcot, no doubt, would have pronounced my 
 wife an hysterical patient, and he would have told 
 me that my condition was abnormal, and would 
 have put us both under treatment. * * * * 
 
 "Neither Charcot or any one else could work 
 our cure. We were impervious alike to advice or 
 bromide of potassium. * * * * We were 
 like two convicts chained together, the rust of 
 whose fetters eats into their flesh and poisons their 
 blood. I did not know that most married couples 
 passed their lives in like fetters." Do they? I 
 ask. If so, then, heaven send a deliverer soon 
 "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
 heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free." 
 
 Now, our unhappy pair, who, for the benefit 
 of the children's health, had been living in the 
 country for a while, return to town for the better 
 advantage of their education; and I shall let 
 Posdnicheff express himself on the change of 
 situation : 
 
 "In town the unhappy feel their misery less. 
 One may live a hundred years there without being 
 noticed, or may die in a month without exciting 
 any remark. One hasn't the time to reflect on 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 51 
 
 one's fate. Business, society, art, the health and 
 education of our children fill up our existence. 
 *********** 
 
 "We lived thus one winter. The next season 
 an incident happened which, although it passed 
 unnoticed, was the cause of everything that 
 followed." 
 
 He then relates that his wife's health being 
 delicate "the rascally doctors" advised her to avoid 
 pregnancy ; to which he objected strongly, but was 
 forced to yield to her determination to follow the 
 doctor's advice and build up her health. 
 
 "And so two years passed. The advice given 
 by our good friends, the doctors, had evidently 
 succeeded. My wife had gained in flesh and put 
 on the beauty of the early autumn. She knew 
 it, and neglected no means of enhancing her love- 
 liness. Hers was now that ripe luxuriance that 
 is even more attractive to men than the freshness 
 of early spring. She had all that splendor that 
 surrounds a woman of thirty who lives well and 
 bears no children. 
 
 "The very sight of her made men tremble. She 
 was like a spirited horse kept too long in the 
 stable, and all at once ridden without a curb." 
 
 Here, says our narrator, PosdnichefFs counte- 
 nance seemed transfigured; his eyes glared with a 
 strange expression; his beard and mustache seemed 
 
52 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 
 
 fairly to bristle and his mouth grew tigerish. 
 "Yes," resumed he, "her form had filled out under 
 her new conditions, and her anxiety about her 
 children seemed to disappear." 
 
 As he was now rid of the doctor's calls and 
 fees, one would think he should be happy. But 
 now the demon of jealousy begins to take hold 
 in earnest. In the exuberance of spirit consequent 
 on her improved physical condition and lightened 
 maternal care, she began to interest herself in her 
 music, which, as all young mothers know, she 
 had been obliged to neglect during the years of 
 pressing maternal care. To use his own words : 
 
 "She set herself eagerly at work practicing at 
 the piano, which for years had been neglected." 
 
 (A privilege, the sacrifice of which through all 
 those years, no doubt, she had often regretted with 
 the full force of the poet's lament: 
 
 "The harp that once thro Tara's halls 
 The soul of music shed, 
 Now hangs as mute on Tara's ivalls 
 As if that soul were dead") 
 
 But to continue : "It was there, at the piano, the 
 tragedy had its beginning. 
 
 "The man appeared !" 
 
 Mistaken Posdnicheff ! Before this he had begun 
 to look on her every action with suspicion ; when, 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 53 
 
 judging from his own impurity of heart, and con- 
 scious also of his own unlovableness, he decides 
 that "love for a husband whose temper was soured 
 with jealousy was no longer her ideal. She dreamed 
 of quite another sort of affection — at hast I sus- 
 pect she did" 
 
 It was this "suspect" that led to the tragedy. 
 Nay; it ivas the tragedy itself. That it w r as that 
 murdered her by inches — driving the knife into 
 her heart was but the finishing stroke. 
 
 Even had not "the man" appeared her doom was 
 sealed. There needed no "scoundrel musician" 
 to bring about the inevitable. The 'family 
 physician, if old enough to be her father; or a 
 call made by the minister of her church, even were 
 he a saint in purity, would have sufficed to feed 
 the spirit of the green-eyed monster and work 
 out the result. Indeed, he says, "If it had not- 
 been him, it would have been another. If jealousy 
 had not moved me to crime, some other passion 
 would have done it. I insist upon one point : that 
 any husband whose married life was like mine, 
 must either live a life of gallantry, separated 
 from his wife — kill himself, or her, as I did. If 
 there are any exceptions to this, they are rare, 
 because the end came with me. I had often come 
 very near suicide, and my wife had frequently 
 tried to poison herself.'' 
 
54 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 
 
 Here I refrain from following in detail the 
 circumstances leading to the shocking tragedy. 
 It is not necessary to 'die purpose of this work 
 and would be almost an infringement on the copy- 
 right of the publishers of "Kreutzer Sonata." 
 Suffice it to say (as it is the author's intention 
 to show, no doubt) that there was no clear proof 
 of criminality in the case; and even had there 
 been, that poor wife would not have been to 
 blame. She was, as it were, "crucified between 
 two thieves" — hypnotized by two overpowering 
 carnal wills. Her husband, by his jealous watch 
 over her, kept amatory thoughts ever uppermost 
 in her mind (this would be the case even were 
 •she endeavoring to guard against suspicion) and 
 to crown his madness, forced hex to receive into 
 their home, as a social guest and musical com- 
 panion, a known libertine, as if determined to 
 triumph over her by bringing about a result he 
 had forecast in his mind. Troukhatchevsky, seeing 
 the situation of affairs — the connubial inharmony 
 and disturbed domestic relations consequent 
 thereon, and being captivated by the double at- 
 traction of her physical charms and superior 
 musical ability, strove, no doubt, to make the 
 most of the opportunity it offered. He sought to 
 win her from the pledge of fidelity to her husband, 
 made at the marriage altar: "to love, honor and 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 55 
 
 cherish till death doth us part." But, who can 
 continue to love one who strives to make himself 
 unlovable, or honor one whose sense of honor is 
 perverted, or to cherish a viper that is stinging 
 her to death? But, after all, it remains unproven 
 that he succeeded. However, on the trial of her 
 husband for her murder, the Eussian courts gave 
 him the full benefit of the possibility of criminal 
 relations between the two, and acquitted him with 
 no further punishment than the eleven months' 
 imprisonment previous to the trial. 
 
 To give his own words : "The court decided that 
 I was a deceived husband, and that I had slain 
 my wife to avenge the stain she had cast on 
 my honor (that was the court's version of it), 
 and so I was acquitted. I tried to explain the 
 crime from my point of view, but the court came 
 to the conclusion that I was trying to rehabilitate 
 my wife's character." 
 
 Ah ! Tolstoi, never did one small volume make 
 so many telling points as this "Kreutzer Sonata" ! 
 Courts used to pervert justice ! Aye ; Justice blind- 
 folded is emblematic from more than one point 
 of view. It represents two phases of its character, 
 each definable onlv when considered in connection 
 with the presiding dispenser of the majesty of 
 the law. Though in the enactment of the tragedy 
 the fury of a madman is exhibited, still, no attempt 
 
56 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 was made to prove him dangerously insane and 
 compel his confinement for the public safety. The 
 passion-crazed wretch, after the merest farce of 
 a trial, is allowed to run at large to select another 
 victim. 
 
 I cannot forbear giving another extract. — His 
 return to consciousness after the frenzy had sub- 
 sided, and his feelings in contemplating the horror 
 of the deed he had committed : 
 
 "I looked at the little ones, then at her poor 
 face, so bruised and disfigured." (He had dealt 
 her a fearful blow in the face before using the 
 dagger) ; "and for the first time I forgot my 
 wrongs, my pride ; for the first time I saw in her a 
 human being — a sister. 
 
 "And now everything that had maddened me 
 appeared so small, and what I had done so terrible 
 that I felt compelled to bow myself in reverence 
 and to take her hand and say, 'Forgive me V 
 
 "But I dared not. She was silent; her eyes 
 were closed; she had not the strength to speak. 
 Then her battered face began to twitch, to wrinkle, 
 and she repulsed me feebly : 
 
 "'Oh! why did you do it? Why?' 
 
 " 'Forgive me V I groaned. 
 
 " 'Yes ! if you had not killed me/ she burst 
 out, with flaming eyes." 
 
 Then farther: "I began to understand when I 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 57 
 
 saw her in her coffin. When I gazed upon her 
 dead face I knew what I had done ; I understood 
 that it was I, indeed, who had murdered her. 
 I understood that it was I who had transferred 
 that living, breathing being to a cold, motionless 
 clod, and that I could not undo my work. 
 
 "Whosoever has not shared such guilt cannot 
 comprehend the horror of it. 
 
 "If only I had known what I know now, I should 
 not have married her. Never ! Never ! 
 
 "That is what I have done, what I have gone 
 through. At last I understand the words of the 
 Holy Evangelist: 
 
 " 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after 
 her, hath committed adultery with her already 
 in his heart' — and not alone with a strange woman, 
 but, above all, with his own wife/ " 
 
 This closes my review of the "Kreutzer Sonata/' 
 a remarkable work. In spite of its condemnation 
 as unfit to go before the public, it has been widely 
 read and duly commented upon. A number of 
 comments coming under my notice I shall append 
 to this work. It is well that we should know how 
 public opinion stands in regard to a matter of 
 such grave importance, bearing on — nay, I might 
 
58 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 
 
 say, underlying the very foundation of the welfare 
 of society. The book cannot be ignored. It has 
 been translated into our language and has now 
 a place in our literature. The name of its author 
 will command for it a reading in circles where 
 otherwise it might not find recognition. It will 
 awaken thought on the subject in the mind of 
 every intelligent person who reads it. And thought 
 is a mighty power. To many it will appear sadly 
 overdrawn and jet they will be forced to admit 
 that it contains much bitter truth. 
 
 A social order — or disorder, which makes two 
 lives miserable — curses innocent offspring by being 
 the result of such degrading association, should 
 be looked into, and the true relation of the sexes 
 studied as a science. An effort should be made to 
 promote something as near akin to social purity 
 as possible. This can never be attained under 
 the present system as it is. Woman must be lifted 
 to her rightful place. Her position, sexually, under 
 the present social arrangement, deprives her of 
 even the privilege of the female of the b 
 creation. The latter is allowed to be true t< 
 nature, woman in marriage is denied that ( 
 given right. It is a disgrace to the civiliza 
 of the nineteenth century to longer continue it 
 without earnest, active effort for an improvement. 
 
 To use the language of Posdnicheff a second 
 
Reviewed by a Woman. 59 
 
 time : "It is horrible even to think of it, and yet 
 people talk of liberty o'f the rights of woman V 9 
 
 But I Tcnow that the way is preparing 
 
 For that which assuredly shall he; 
 Since none can thwart heaven s high purpose 
 
 Or alter its righteous decree. 
 Long the world has been groaning in travail, 
 
 And the hour of Us birth-throes draws near—* 
 ■"Prepare ye to welcome the stranger, 
 
 The Messiah who soon will appear! 
 l Do ye ask, "When he comes shall ive tcnow himf 9 
 
 Or, "What is the token to bef 
 'She will come well credentialed by heaven — 
 
 Nay, marvel ye not, it is she. 
 Men talk of the Goddess of Justice, 
 
 And Wisdom, and Mercy and Peace; 
 If these must forever be emblems, 
 
 0, let the vain mockery cease! 
 And if Liberty, pride of the nation, 
 
 With torch to enlighten the world, 
 Is but a misrepresentation, 
 
 Down let the fair statue be hurled! 
 But nay; stay the hand! that creation 
 
 Is surely a prophecy true; 
 Through a heaven-direct inspiration 
 
 Man budded more wise than he knew. 
 
60 The 4< Kreutzer Sonata/' 
 
 And the time draweth nigh to reveal it; 
 
 This cycle will shortly he run, 
 And then comes the glorious era 
 
 Of womanhood clothed with the sun. 
 
 Adelaide Comstock. 
 Ventuka, Cal. 
 
 THE END. 
 
PUBLIC OPINION— AN APPENDIX. 
 
 The "Kreutzer Sonata" — But why should any 
 one quarrel with Count Tolstoi ? For this reason, 
 his ideal is inapplicable even as an ideal to 
 humanity generally; to the millions who fill the 
 ranks, it is no more possible or useful as an ideal 
 that an invisible star. On the other hand, to the 
 few, to the elect who are their own masters, it 
 has ceased to be an ideal, and has long since become 
 a practical rule of daily life. The few are found 
 both within and without the married state. Count 
 Tolstoi has at any rate the courage to say what 
 some men and women, married and single, have 
 found out for themselves twenty years ago. — 
 Woman's Penny Paper. 
 
 If the "Kreutzer Sonata" could be read by the 
 mothers of the land it would be well. It might 
 settle in their minds a conviction that there is 
 such a thing possible as holding her sons to the 
 same code of morals she grafts into the lives of 
 her daughters. Strange,, is it not, that we women 
 
62 Public Opinion— -An Appendix. 
 
 must need be taught self-respect. But that is the 
 quality which the world stands most in need of. 
 Woman's duty to herself should be paramount. 
 She is just beginning to speak and is somewhat 
 amazed to find she can. True, her lips have been 
 sealed since Eve allowed Adam to tell the story 
 of the apple. The "Kreutzer Sonata" is a pioneer 
 milestone in the reform road to social purity. — 
 Haryot Hall in Woman's Chronicle. 
 
 This little book has proven to be big in im- 
 portance. It is classed as fiction, but is a rather 
 curious and exceptional form of novel. Its author 
 has become celebrated as a Eussian writer of 
 powerful novels and a sponsor for original, philo- 
 sophical or religious views. 
 
 This latest, perhaps greatest, and best known of 
 his published works is a story w r ritten with the 
 purpose of awakening a wicked and degenerate 
 people calling themselves civilized, moral and 
 Christian, to their brutish, immoral, un-Christian 
 and barbarous sins in the marriage relation. That 
 the awakening is being accomplished there is no 
 doubt; to what extent any reform will result 
 to remains to be seen. 
 
 The novelty of the book consists not so much 
 in originality of its thought, as in method and 
 boldness of presentation. What the multitude 
 
Public Opinion — An Appendix. 63 
 
 would consider dull treatises on the hygiene of 
 sexual physiology have less bluntly told it of the 
 error of its ways, and Tolstoi's philosophical 
 ultimatum of ultra-asceticism pointing to volun- 
 tary obliteration of the human race is a species 
 of oriental pessimism or Shakerism for which he 
 w r ould not claim originality, and yet it is one of 
 the features of this book which has made it a 
 surprise, aroused criticism and insured its wide 
 fcuccess. 
 
 The book appeared here last spring, and that 
 standard in literary criticism, The Critic, at once 
 discovered in it "a moral earthquake/' and declared 
 "that so daring a treatment of a daring theme 
 had never before been attempted in literature. * * 
 Brutal truths have been flung at us from every 
 page, and yet, at the end, we cry out: "It is not 
 true. Despite his marvelous genius, his flashes 
 of insight, his tragic intensity of purpose and con- 
 viction, Tolstoi can never be a true guide and 
 master. * * * He leaves the world in ruins, 
 in chaos and darkness. He alone is a teacher who 
 can build as well as destroy, who holds up a 
 torch for mankind causing the light to shine in 
 dark places/' 
 
 One of the best and briefest judgments upon the 
 book we have seen was in a letter of onlv five 
 written lines from one lady to another, saying: 
 
64 Public Opinion— An Appendix. 
 
 "It is a terrible book, but the reason is because 
 Ave all recognize the truths in it." The Christian 
 Union reviewer, back in May, said, "While it deals 
 with the relations of the sexes with a somewhat 
 revolting frankness, it is quite free from that 
 sensuous suggestiveness which sometimes furnishes 
 an illicit attractiveness to readers of morbid 
 imagination," and also, "we do not predict for it 
 a large sale ; it is not in any sense entertaining." 
 
 Such notices no doubt helped make for it a 
 brisk dematfd, but the very large sale which it 
 is having is mainly due to the gratuitous adver- 
 tising of the postal department in the decision 
 that it comes within the provisions of the law 
 excluding obscene literature from the mails. Inas- 
 much as these censors admit that it is "studiously 
 and beautifully expressed," it seems curious that 
 they should have singled it out for action while 
 ignoring the numerous examples of "French 
 Trash" and American imitations of them that are 
 mainly built upon their "illicit attractiveness"; 
 but they detected filth between the lines, and 
 insults to virtuous (they mean married, of course,) 
 men and women in the lines. We are not surprised 
 that the hypocrisy of to-day can more easily bear 
 with the suggestive emanations of prurient imagi- 
 nations, and the so-called realistic descriptions 
 of lower life, than holding the mirror up to nature 
 
Public Opinion — An Appendix. 65 
 
 in a way to expose the curtained, legalized con- 
 cupiscence of high life. 
 
 The Buffalo Express says editorially, "We can't 
 keep silent when official prudery, dunce-like 
 obliquity of sense, is asserted in censorship of what 
 the American public may read. * * * It is one 
 of the most moral books ever written. It is supra- 
 moral. The story is nothing; amusement-hunters 
 will weary of it. It is a book for the serious 
 minded/' 
 
 George Gary Eggleston in the World shows how 
 very differently he looks at it, and gives a fair 
 sample of the views expressed adverse to the book 
 as a literary production. He says: "The book is, 
 in the first place, feeble. As a story it is void, 
 formless; as a work of art, destitute of beauty; 
 as a moral preachment, grossly immoral. It is 
 not erotic — simply repulsive. It is daring without 
 excuse and to no purpose. Nearly as I can make 
 out, the moral purpose of the book is to teach 
 mankind that the marriage relation is the most 
 vicious one imaginable, without any possible 
 sanctity and unredeemed even by the command 
 to 'be fruitful and multiply/ a command which 
 the novelist thinks it would be better to disobey. 
 He insists that there neither is nor can be any 
 distinction between love and lust, between marriage 
 and the grossest of all possible relations." 
 
66 Public Opinion— An Appendix. 
 
 The St. Louis Post-Despatch shows still another 
 way in which it may strike a reader, in saying: 
 "The avowed object of the work is not only to 
 condemn all immorality, but to discourage 
 romantic love as essentially immoral. Its analysis 
 and exposition of passion are repulsive and are 
 about as likely to excite licentious thoughts as the 
 dissection of a human floater. Its very impulsive- 
 ness and the shocking view it takes of all physical 
 love have brought upon it the condemnation of 
 critics. On the other hand, the moral purpose 
 of the work is manifestly to urge upon men and 
 women the adoption of-an ideal of chastity so 
 lofty that it is declared impossible of achievement/' 
 
 There was much expression of doubt among 
 critics as to whether Tolstoi really entertained 
 such a philosophy, for in the book it is put forth 
 by a man who has sown wild oats in profusion in 
 youth; married for lust, treated his wife like 
 a harlot, murdered her in a fit of jealousy, and 
 at last suddenly waked up to the enormity of his 
 deeds and the folly of his life all through. One 
 is not surprised that such a man has come to 
 regard romantic love as moral depravity, marriage 
 a curse rather than a blessing from any point 
 of view, and universal celibacy as the only true 
 morality; and it is not remarkable that critics 
 should have w T ondered how much of such moral- 
 
Public Opinion — An Appendix. 67 
 
 ag to bis villain (there is 
 no hero in tlu v book) and how much of it he 
 would himself vouch for. 
 
 This doubt has been settled by a frank avowal 
 from Tolstoi, in which he acknowledges at least 
 the philosophy to be his own — though as to the 
 experiences of the story he says not whether any 
 part of them were his. An interviewer writes that 
 Tolstoi was a man of the world till fifty years 
 of age, that his peculiar, anarchistic and unique 
 views, political, religious and social, are the out- 
 come of a sudden awakening and a train of 
 thought started in his mind by a "slumming" 
 visit made by him with his son, in taking a 
 census of the most miserably poor of a great city. 
 He now resides on a large estate with an estimable 
 wife, and has been the father of thirteen children, 
 the last of which is only two years old. So we 
 may believe that his ideas about celibacy are of 
 very recent development, or that he himself thinks 
 of it only as an ideal, not expecting to match 
 his life with his creed. Indeed, he is quoted as 
 writing very recently: "Chastity and celibacy, it 
 is urged, cannot constitute the ideal of humanity 
 because chastity would annihilate the race which 
 strove to realize it, and humanity cannot set up 
 as its ideal its own annihilation. It may be 
 pointed out in reply that only that is a true ideal 
 
68 Public Opinion — An Appendix. 
 
 which, being unattainable, admits of infinite 
 gradation in degrees of proximity. " 
 
 One so thinking could doubtless find abundant 
 excuse (in human frailty and the hopelessness 
 of attaining his ideal) for failing by several 
 "degrees of proximity/' 
 
 He claims to have arrived at his conclusions 
 against his prejudices, by the operation of his 
 reason in an analysis of pure Christianity, over 
 a route that is probably parallel with if not identi- 
 cal with the reasoning of the Shakers. 
 
 To him the only cure for the social corruption 
 and marital mistakes is a gradually dying out 
 of mankind; thus he arrives at the pessimistic 
 goal merely by one route, which others have reached 
 before him in morbid contemplation of general 
 problems of good and evil, light and darkness, 
 finding no way to abolishing evil but by being 
 swallowed up in darkness — the Nirvana of the 
 Eastern cults. As the Herald savs : "His rhetoric 
 bodes pervasive sophistry, and his logic is hope- 
 lessly insane. There you are in the mire irre- 
 trievably; your teacher has become a crank and 
 his former eccentricities have developed into 
 somthing like drivel." 
 
 Since such a writer must be judged in the main 
 by his conclusions, his final ideal, and since this 
 notion of effacing sin by annihilation is his cul- 
 
Public Opinion — An Appendix. 69 
 
 minatiiig note, we agree with Edmund Gosse, 
 that acute mental exasperation is the effect of 
 the tone of the entire book; that is " irr itating, 
 disturbing, unwholesome" ; and yet "there is no 
 
 lack of passages which, if the general structure 
 of the book were not so preposterous, might be 
 referred to with emphatic approval." 
 
 Of course there is no danger that as a result 
 of such teaching sinners will so far repent as to 
 follow his advice, lead celibate lives and Im- 
 patiently look forward to the death of the last, 
 lone man; but that much of his book can be 
 generally approved fails to be effective under the 
 shadow of his acknowledged belief that all marital 
 love is sin — all human life a grand failure. If 
 he had left us even the chance to accord him the 
 benefit of the doubt, to suppose that this frame 
 of mind was merely pictured as a natural result 
 of an uncontrolled and debauched life, then we 
 could regard that life as a terrible example, and 
 aim to avoid its grand mistakes ; but, as it stands, 
 the thoughtless reader is likely to conclude that 
 a philosopher preaching such extreme crarikism 
 cannot give advice worth heeding anyway, or that 
 since his ideal is (according to himself and every- 
 body else) unattainable, it isn't worth striving 
 toward even ; while the thoughtful reader wonders 
 if the author's peculiar cerebration may not mean 
 
jo Public Opinion — An Appendix. 
 
 that there is a pathological state to account for 
 that Posdnicheff and Tolstoi are identical in 
 something more than conclusions, and that while 
 such an individual may be an interesting and 
 unfortunate clinical specimen, he is in no condition 
 to father a philosophy. A mind with much to 
 repent of. operating in a body suffering from 
 premature decrepitude, and basing its operations 
 on the creed of an ascetic fanatic, cannot be 
 expected to evolve a philosophy of real utility to 
 humanity, or promotive of its present needs. 
 
 The "Kreutzer Sonata" is interesting as a patho- 
 logical study, a portrayal of the wrecking of 
 lives on the rocks of debased love, and may serve 
 as a horrid example to save others from a like 
 fate, but it ought offset by another book, 
 
 from a sane mind in a sound body, based upon 
 the science and philosophy of to-day, and depicting 
 the smooth course of a true love on a healthful, 
 physiological plane ; it would be less startling, less 
 true to life as it is, but if equally bold and well 
 told would be more wholesome and useful in 
 pointing the better way/' — The Health 
 Monthly. 
 
 W17 
 
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