The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories

A man on a night train explains to a stranger why he killed his wife, and the argument he makes about marriage is one Tolstoy half believed. The story was banned outright in Russia and in the United States mails; Tolstoy's own wife published it by petitioning the Tsar in person, then wrote a novel answering it. Fifty-nine plates of painting from 1790 to 1920, among them Kustodiev and Repin, trace the jealousy, marriage and murder that run through these stories.