Newly translated counter-stories, released in English for the first time, reveal humiliation caused by novella about a jealous husband
I know in my heart that this story is directed against me, wrote Leo Tolstoys wife, Sofia, of his controversial novella The Kreutzer Sonata. It has done me a great wrong, humiliated me in the eyes of the world and destroyed the last vestiges of love between us. Now two stories by Sofia Tolstoy herself, written in response to her husbands tale of a man who murders his wife in a jealous rage, are due to be published in English for the first time.
In The Kreutzer Sonata Variations, out next month from Yale University Press, the newly translated counter-stories by Sofia Tolstoy, and by Tolstoys son Lev Lvovich Tolstoy, will sit alongside a new translation of Tolstoys original work as well as the authors extraordinary epilogue, in which he makes an argument for the ideal of chastity. First released in 1889, the book sees Tolstoys protagonist Pozdnyshev confess how he murdered his wife after he became jealous of her relationship with a musician. It was initially banned by Russian censors, and when it appeared in English in 1890, it also hit difficulties with distribution in the US, where it was described as of indecent character.
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