The Kreutzer Sonata

Leo Tolstoy, Nancy Harris

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781849432917
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A play about death, desire and Beethoven. A man boards a train: the confined space of the carriage triggers potent memories. Soon he is confessing to a terrible crime, one for which he holds Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata responsible. Written in 1889, Leo Tolstoy's novella became instantly notorious, and was banned in both Russia and America. Tolstoy hoped one day to see it performed to the accompaniment of live music. In this adaptation by Nancy Harris, musicians and actors come together to bring the story to life for the stage.

The dimly lit interior of a train carriage.

1889. Night.

The chanting sound of a train in motion. Very gradually it begins to merge with the strains of a violin playing somewhere off in the darkness.

A well-dressed man is seated in the carriage. He is playing with a child’s wooden yo-yo. He catches it and lets it drop. Catches it, lets it drop. Catches it, lets it drop. He looks up, smiles, nods at the yo-yo.

POZDYNYSHEV: Forgive me.

He puts the yo-yo in his pocket, then he looks around the train carriage, an attempt to engage in small talk.

They’re coming from all over, that’s what I hear. By road, rail – some on foot. Concert. Violinist’s from Paris – genius apparently. Most flexible fingers in Europe. Everyone’s a music lover these days.

He unfolds a handkerchief and is about to wipe his face when he spots the red lipstick print of a woman’s lips on it. He stops. Looks at it for a beat then holds it up.

Some people hear it all the time. Music. In everything. Birds, breezes, children’s laughter. I hear it all the time. Not like that, but I hear it.

He studies the handkerchief again, perhaps fingering the lipstick mark. Continues pleasantly.

An evening of music, to me, is like an evening spent at a brothel. You pay your money, you perspire – there is a vague feeling of release, followed by a temporary feeling of elation and you return to life as it was, a bigger fraud than before. I am not a music lover.

Forgive me for lowering the tone. Trains have a peculiar effect on me. I’m not alone in that it seems. Something to do with the motion – its loosening up of the tongue. On trains I have heard about the wildest orgies from men who might have passed for priests. I’ve listened to details of debased adulteries from the most wholesome looking husbands. Trains…

He begins to put the handkerchief back into his pocket. He looks around at the train perhaps gesturing to his surroundings a little.

I proposed to my wife on a boat. That’s a lie. I resolved to propose to my wife on a boat. We hadn’t been courting long and before that evening I hadn’t even been sure of her. She was a girl. There were lots of girls for men with land and a background in law. She was a girl that I liked.

But then there was the boat and the bobbing and the moonlight and the music, not to mention a very becoming tight fitting blouse that showed off her waist and small pert bosom – and that evening by the water, I knew I was in love. Or should I say that evening by the water I decided. I decided that this wide-eyed creature sitting before me, with the soft skin and amber curls, was not like the wide-eyed creatures I had had sitting before me before.

This one had something – more. A certain – understanding, it seemed to me, of every thought and feeling that I had ever had. And, as you can imagine, fixed in the gaze of this captivated gazelle – my every thought and feeling acquired a profound and urgent importance that they had never had before. Or since for that matter. Preacher, philosopher, wit – I was all three and my future wife with her trusting eyes and shapely figure, she knew, she saw, she understood– everything. Me. It had to be love.

He smiles, inviting us to revel in the irony.

Besides, she was beautiful. Beautiful always means good.

I proposed to her the very next day. Got down on one knee with the ring my mother left me and asked the question. And she, the delighted fool, accepted.

All women want a mate. Tell them that at your own peril but it’s true. Better to be a corpse than a spinster. Oh, they claim there are other things to want and fight for and fight for them they do. But look closely. Listen to their conversation, read the books they read and the poetry they like and I think you’ll find that all of them – from the very old to the very young – have their eyes peeled for a partner. There’s no blame in it. Their mothers groom them, the dressmakers clothe them, the tutors teach them – to the highest of standards, but it’s all towards the same end is it not? It’s all towards the one purpose. To attach themselves to men. No wonder they hate us.

The faintest sound of the violin somewhere off. He listens for a moment. Then takes a cigarette from the case. He gestures to it.

My wife detested smoking. She banished it from the house. My wife was an exceptional woman. I didn’t know her at all of course, but in as much as I can fathom, I believe she was a wonder.

He lights up.

Before I met her, like most men of my sort – educated, intelligent, refined – I lived a life of total dissolution. There’s no greater mask for immorality than manners. Manners I had in abundance. I also had nurses, chambermaids, women I had met at parties, the sisters of those women I had met at parties and even once, the mother. She was very accommodating despite her age – an excellent vintage.

It was all in good fun of course, all in good health, this life of degradation, this is what young men do before they settle down. Everyone knows that. Doctors advise it, doctors prescribe it. Parents condone it or at least turn a blind eye. After all, it’s only nature taking its course. We aren’t hurting anyone – us boys. Except the people we’re hurting.

In any case, I wasn’t the careless sort. I was careful with every one of my conquests. I made no promises. I formed no attachments – I left no children – that could be traced back to me. If I was worried that a girl had somehow misunderstood my intentions beyond our sweaty boudoir – as happened once or twice – I was always sure to send her money. That way all was clear. Women understand money.

My first time with a lady was a monetary transaction. I doubt I’m the only man in this vicinity who can lay claim to it, but men grow shy in public. I was sixteen years old. My brother, myself, a few friends, a few laughs. What else?

The place, the house, where the girls were roomed had a smell – over-boiled broccoli and liver. The floors were, as one would imagine, wooden, stained, unswept. In the books I had read and the anecdotes I’d heard from other boys more knowledgeable than I, prostitutes looked kindly on virgins. They treated them with a maternal tenderness and very often guided the act so that everything went where it should. I had even heard that some might lightly stroke your back and let you sleep a little longer than you’d paid for because the first time drains the body. Yes.

Beat.

He shakes his head.

Not my girl. She wasn’t much older than I for a start and thin as a bird with lank hair and sad eyes. I could trace her ribs with my fingers and her bones cracked beneath my weight. When it was over, she got up, wiped my saliva from her cheek and held open the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Character
• Dialogue
• A Note on Music
• The Kreutzer Sonata