Kreutzer Sonata

Summary

A tremulous violin chord thrums across the snow-dusted parlors of Saint Petersburg, where Miriam—white-skinned against sable furs—becomes the sacrificial note in her father’s merciless ledger. To cloak a clandestine pregnancy, the old man purchases Gregor Randor, a threadbare virtuoso whose bow once courted the air of concert halls now reduced to scraping tavern waltzes. Cash changes palms; wedding bells clang like shackles. The newly-minted couple boards a coffin-black steamer, smoke stacks coughing like consumptive serfs, and wash ashore in a gaudy, clangorous New York where skyscrapers still wear the scaffolding of ambition. Domesticity curdles: Miriam’s lullabies splinter against Gregor’s feverish rehearsals; her kin—among them Celia, dewy and reed-slender—arrive as uninvited chorus. In the hush between nocturnes, Gregor’s gaze slithers from wife to sister-in-law, a modulation from minor to major lust. Celia, half-doe, half-cinder, yields. Their trysts seep through thin tenement walls; Miriam, once naïve muse, now becomes avenging Maenad. She stalks the lovers with the same poised ruthlessness she once reserved for Tchaikovsky scores, her vengeance a cadenza that crescendos in scarlet.

Synopsis

Miriam, a young Russian girl, has an unfortunate love affair and is threatened with disgrace by having a child out of wedlock. Her father induces Gregor Randor, a young musician, to marry her, by paying him a sum of money. The couple migates to the United States, where they are later followed by Miriam's family, including her younger sister Celia. A love affair develops between Gregor and Celia, and despite their efforts at secrecy, Miriam learns about it. Torn between her outraged pride and her love for her young son, she confronts her cheating husband and her sister--to no avail. So she decides to wreak vengeance on them.