The story is divided into two parts. In Part I, schoolboy Mitya is in desperate need of money to repay a debt, but his father angrily denies him assistance. Dejected, under the instigation of a friend Makhin, Mitya simply changes a 2.50 rouble bond coupon to read 12.50 roubles, but this one evil deed sets off a chain of events that affects the lives of dozens of others, when his one falsehood indirectly causes a man to murder a woman at the end of Part I, and then seek redemption through religion in Part II.
Having written the novella in his dying years, after his excommunication, Tolstoy relishes the chance to unveil the "pseudo-piety and hypocrisy of organized religion." Yet, he maintains an unwavering belief in man's capacity to find truth, so the story remains hopeful, especially in Part II, which shows that good works can affect another as in a domino effect, just as evil does in Part I. The novella has also been translated with the title "The Counterfeit Note" and "The Forged Banknote."
The title novella in this collection of stories from literary master Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata, unleashed a firestorm of controversy upon its original publication. The story seeks to unpack the complex relationship between sex and love, and in it, Tolstoy makes a number of arguments about intimacy that were considered shocking in the context of nineteenth-century morals and mores. This collection is a wonderful introduction to Tolstoy's work for new readers, or for confirmed fans looking for some of Tolstoy's lesser-known works.
In this short story, a land owner named Vasily Andreyevich Brekhunov takes along one of his peasants, Nikita, for a short journey by sleigh. They are traveling to visit another landowner so that Vasily Andreyevivh can purchase a forest. He is impatient and wishes to get there more quickly before other contenders can get there. They find themselves in the middle of a blizzard, but the master in his avarice wishes to press on. Due to snow, they find themselves losing the road and getting lost. They eventually find themselves in a town and stop to rest before Vasily Andreyevich decides they must set back out. They lose the road and the horse gets so tired that they decide to try to sleep out the night and find their way in the morning. Nikita, who is not as warmly dressed, soon finds himself about to die from hypothermia. Vasily Andreyevich decides to leave Nikita to die and sets out on his own on the horse. He wanders through the snow in circles and eventually falls off the horse, finding himself back by Nikita and the sleigh. The master attains a spiritual/moral revelation, and Tolstoy once again repeats one of his famous themes: that the only true happiness in life is found by living for others. The master then lies on top of the peasant to keep him warm through the cold night. In the morning, peasants dig out the sleigh, which was only half a mile from town. They find Vasily Andreyevich and the horse dead but Nikita is still alive.