The Complete Works of Count Tolstoy/Volume 18/The Kreutzer Sonata/Chapter 23
XXIII.
"I think it is superfluous to say that I was very vainglorious if we are not to be vainglorious in our habitual life, then there is no cause for living at all. Well, on that Sunday I entered with zest into the preparations for the dinner and soirée with the music. I myself bought things for the dinner and called the guests.
"At about six o'clock the guests arrived, and he appeared in evening dress with diamond studs, showing poor taste. He bore himself with ease, replied to everything hurriedly and with a slight smile of agreement and comprehension,—you know, with that especial expression which says that everything you may do or say is just what he expected. Everything which was improper in him I now took notice of with particular pleasure, because all this served to calm me and show me that he stood for my wife on a low level to which, as she said, she could not descend. I did not allow myself to be jealous. In the first place, my torment had been too great and I had to rest from it; in the second, I wished to believe the assertions of my wife, and I did believe them. And yet, although I was not jealous, I was unnatural toward him and toward her, and during the dinner and the first part of the evening entertainment, before the music began, I continued to watch their motions and glances.
"The dinner was like all dinners,—dull and stiff. The music began quite early. Oh, how I remember all the details of that evening! I remember how he brought the violin, opened the case, lifted the cover which had been embroidered for him by a lady, took out the violin, and began to tune it. I remember how my wife sat down, feigning indifference, under which I saw her conceal her timidity,—timidity mainly as to her own ability,—how she sat down with a look of indifference at the piano, and there began the usual la on the piano, the pizzicato of the violin, and the placing of the music. I remember how, then, they looked at each other, casting a glance at the seated guests, how they said something one to the other, and how then it began. He took the first chords. His face grew serious, stern, and sympathetic, and, listening to his tones, he picked the strings with cautious fingers. The piano replied to him. And it began—"
Pózdnyshev stopped and several times in succession emitted his sounds. He wanted to speak, but he snuffled and again stopped.
"They were playing the Kreutzer Sonata by Beethoven," he continued. "Do you know the first presto? You do?" he exclaimed. "Ugh! Ugh! That sonata is a terrible thing, particularly that part of it. Music, in general, is a terrible thing. I cannot understand what it is. What is music? What does it do? And why does it do that which it does? They say that music acts upon the soul by elevating it,—nonsense, a lie! It acts, acts terribly,—I am speaking for myself,—but not at all by elevating. It neither elevates nor humbles the soul,—it irritates it. How shall I tell it to you? Music makes me forget myself and my real condition; it transfers me to another, not my own condition: it seems to me that under the influence of music I feel that which I really do not feel, that I understand that which I do not understand, that I can do that which I cannot do. I explain this by supposing that music acts like yawning, like laughter: I do not want to sleep, but I yawn seeing people yawn; I have no cause for laughing, but I laugh hearing others laugh.
"This music immediately, directly transfers me to the mental condition in which he was who wrote that music. I am merged in his soul, and am with him carried from one condition to another; but I do not know why this happens with me. He who wrote it, say the Kreutzer Sonata,—Beethoven,—he knew why he was in such a mood; this mood led him to do certain acts, and so this mood had some meaning for him, whereas for me it has none. Therefore music only irritates,—it does not end. Well, they play a military march, and the soldiers march under its strain, and the music comes to an end; they play dance music, and I finish dancing, and the music comes to an end; well, they sing a mass, I receive the Holy Sacrament, and the music comes to an end. But here there is only an irritation, but that which is to be done under this irritation is absent. It is for this reason that music is so terrible and often acts so dreadfully. In China music is a state matter. That is the way it ought to be. How can any one who wishes be allowed to hypnotize another, or many persons, and then do with them what he pleases? And especially how can they allow any kind of an immoral man to be the hypnotizer?
"Into whose hands has this terrible power fallen? Let us take for example the Kreutzer Sonata. How can one play the first presto in a drawing-room amidst ladies in décolleté garments? To play this presto, to applaud it, and then to eat ice-cream and talk about the last bit of gossip? These things should be played only under certain important, significant circumstances, and then when certain acts, corresponding to this music, are to be performed, and that is to be done which the music demands of you. But the provocation of energy and feeling which do not correspond to the time or place, and which find no expression, cannot help acting perniciously. Upon me, at least, it had a most terrible effect: it seemed to me as though entirely new feelings, new possibilities, of which I had never known before, were revealed to me. 'Yes, that is so, it is quite different from what I used to think and feel about it; it is like this,' a voice seemed to say within me. What this new thing was which I had discovered I was not able to explain to myself, but the consciousness of this new condition was a pleasurable one. All the people present—among them my wife and he—presented themselves in a new light to me.
"After the allegro they played the beautiful, but common, and not new andante with trite variations, and a very weak finale. After that they played, at the guests' request, an elegy by Ernst, and some other trifles. All that was very nice, but it did not produce on me one-hundredth part of the impression which the first had produced. All this took place on the background of the impression which had been evoked by the first piece.
"I felt light and happy on that evening. I had never before seen my wife as she was on that evening. Those sparkling eyes, that severity and expressiveness while she was playing, and that complete dissolution, if I may so call it, and that feeble, pitiable, and blissful smile after they were through! I saw it all, but ascribed no other meaning to it than that she was experiencing the same as I, and that to her, as to me, there were revealed, or, as it were, brought back, new, unfelt sensations. The evening came to a successful end and all departed.
"Knowing that I was to leave in two days to attend to the meeting, Trukhachévski at leaving said that he hoped at his next visit to repeat the pleasure of the present evening. From this I could conclude that he did not consider it possible to be in my house during my absence, and this pleased me.
"It turned out that since I should not be back before his departure, we should not meet again.
"I for the first time pressed his hand with real joy and thanked him for the pleasure he had given me. He, too, bade farewell to my wife. Their farewell seemed to me most natural and proper. Everything was beautiful. My wife and I were both very much satisfied with the evening.