The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories (Penguin Classics)

287 pp. Contains the short stories of "The Kreutzer Sonata," "The Devil," "The Forged Coupon," and "After the Ball." Translated by David McDuff. While "The Kreutzer Sonata" caused a public sensation, Tolstoy's wife, Sonya, was hurt and furious that he should have enriched his scathing indictment of marriage with private details from their own life together. Tolstoy, during two years of obsessive unhappiness, had become convinced that the idea of a "Christian Marriage" was an impossibility. Here he lets loose all his frusteration and disgust as human sexuality, and the humiliating, ungodly, sensual tie that binds men to women. The curious resuly, part self-lacerating, confession, as the story of a man whose sexual jealousy, inflamed by gilt, drives him to murder his wife. The violent spiritual crisis in Tolstoy's life that produced "The Kreutzer Sonata" made possible the last great period of creativity that include other short stories in this volume.