There is no splendour in this drama, not even the splendour of crime, but Tolstoy has good warrant in depicting evil as he does; he shows the worst feature of evil as being its insufferable meanness and dirtiness, and the same truth is driven home by _The Kreutzer Sonata_ and _Resurrection_. But though this drama is so gloomy it is not despairing; the one point of light glows and kindles till it overpowers the whole; even in the heart of the darkness God has made manifest His power. _The Kreutzer Sonata_ probably ranks with _Anna Karénina_ as being the best-known of Tolstoy's productions. It had in England and elsewhere what might be termed a _succès de scandale_. The emphasis laid upon it is, in some ways, unfortunate; it serves many people as an introduction to Tolstoy; they read it, are repelled, and explore no further. The truth is that it stands almost alone among Tolstoy's works; the same elements are present, the same ideas are discussed else where, but they are nowhere else brought to a focus of such intensity and concentrated in such powerful expression. The piece is almost pure Strindberg; it represents that woman-hatred, that loathing of marriage, that helpless rage against physical passion, of which the Swedish author has made himself the chief European exponent. The situation is exactly the sort of situation Strindberg delights in: husband and wife bound together by a purely sensual passion which they both abominate but cannot, either of them, control; the paroxysms of indulgence followed by paroxysms of mutual loathing; the endless quarrels; the reciprocal jealousy; the miserable and shallow infidelity; and, as a climax, the miserable, vanity-inspired murder. But, {81} though the subject is almost pure Strindberg, Tolstoy is infinitely more just to women than Strindberg could contrive to be.