by Leo Tolstoy
First published 1889
A man boards a train and begins talking to fellow passengers about marriage and love. His conversation turns darker as he reveals his own story. He married a woman he suspected of infidelity with her music teacher. His jealousy consumed him until he killed her in a fit of rage. This collection contains four stories that examine different faces of human desire. A young woman in "Family Happiness" moves from passionate courtship through the disappointments of marriage to quieter love. In "The Devil," a married man cannot resist returning to a peasant woman he knew before his wedding. "Father Sergius" follows a soldier who becomes a monk, then a hermit, then a beggar, all to escape physical temptation. Each story reveals how love can transform into jealousy, how desire can become obsession, and how people struggle between their spiritual aspirations and bodily needs. Tolstoy draws on experiences his readers recognize: the intoxication of new love, the boredom of routine marriage, the pull of forbidden attraction.
Genres: fiction, 20th-century, 19th-century
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, obsession, unreliable-narrator
Period: 19th Century, 20th Century
318 pages · Paperback · Penguin Classics
Content warnings: domestic-violence, murder, violence