Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov
Russian fiction
Original title – Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uyezda
Translator – Robert Chandler
Source – Personal copy
One of the aims of this year was to get more familiar with Russian Classics. I read War and Peace early on in the blog, and she and there have read a number of other books that have come from the likes of Pushkin Press when they have brought out a new collection of stories by a writer or a new Translation. However, this writer may not be as well-known as other writers on the same page. He was well-regarded among his fellow Russian writers but was never taken in the English-speaking world. This book is better known for being the basis of Shostakovich’s Opera, which is based around the book, and a few years ago, there was a film made of the novella as well. Leskov had a Harder upbringing than some of his fellow Russian writers. He worked as a clerk in the criminal court. He climbed and eventually was able to get a transfer to Kyiv. He ultimately went to work for a private company and got drawn into journalism and then to literary writing. He is known for his wordplay. There is an excellent LRB podcast about this book with Robert Chandler, the book’s translator.
Katerina Lvovna was not exactly a beauty, but there was something pleasing about her nevertheless. She was only in her twenty-fourth year; she was short but shapely, with a neck that could have been sculpted from marble; she had graceful shoulders and a firm bosom; her nose was straight and fine, her eyes black and lively, and she had a high white forehead and black, almost blue-black hair. Herself from Tuskar in the province of Kursk, she had been given in marriage to a local merchant by the name of Izmailov; she did not, however, love him or feel any attraction towards him – it was simply that he had asked for her hand and she, being poor, could not afford to be choosy. The Izmailov family was of no small importance in our town: they traded in white flour, rented a large mill in the district, and owned profitable orchards on the outskirts of town as well as a fine town house. In short, they were well-to-do. Moreover, they were not a large family: there was only the father-in-law, Boris Timofeyevich Izmailov, a man of nearly eighty who had long been a widower; Katerina Lvovna’s husband, Zinovy Borisovich, who was a little over fifty; and Katerina Lvovna herself. That was all. Although Katerina Lvovna and Zinovy Borisovich had been married for five years, they still had no children.
The children or lack of is mentioned by her father in Law
This book is one of those books that, when you finish it, you go through all that happened in so few Pages. The book follows Katerina Lvovna, a wife of a much older man. By marriage, he is away working after the book’s opening, and we see how her husband’s father, Boris, wants children. He tells her how Zinovy has already been through a wife and is pushing his young wife for a child. But when a dam breaks on one of his properties, Katerina is left home alone. She has the house to herself, and as she is alone, she eventually starts a relationship with the Steward who has Left Sergei. She flirts with him, But she is told he is a womaniser. But when she is caught with Sergei in the bed with him by her father-in-law Boris. This one event sets her on a path of killing people and a series of events that change the whole course of her life and her connection over the years that follow. Sergei it shows a one-sided affair with a man who is more interested in Women than romance. But the knock-on effect on the woman that loves him. A Lady Macbeth indeed.
‘I know very well, master, where I’ve just been, and I advise you, Boris Timofeyevich, to listen to me and mark my words: what’s done can’t be undone, and it’s best not to bring shame on one’s own house. What do you want of me? What satistaction do you require?”
‘I want, you viper, to give you five hundred strokes of the lash, said Boris Timofeyevich.
I’m the culprit, you’re the judge. Tell me where I’m to go – and do as you wish. Drink the blood from my veins.’ Boris Timofeyevich led Sergei down to his stone storeroom and lashed him with a whip until the strength gave out in his arm. Sergei didn’t even let out a groan, though he chewed through half of his shirtsleeve.
When they get caught by Boris
I haven’t seen the opera or film of this book. I will be watching the film at some point. I have found it online. The title shows how rare it is for a woman to kill like Lady Macbeth, and here we see Katerina do it. We see a woman driven by the desire for both desire and freedom. But then the unravelling after what happens when they are caught by Boris, both her decision to kill him and also the long-term relationship between Katerina and Sergei. It shows how females struggle to break free of marriage when trapped in one. How by her father in law she is viewed as a baby-making machine. Then there is her relationship with Sergei, a womaniser, but she never quite sees it. She is blind to him until the end of the book!! I would be interested to see if Robert Chandler has done any more books by him. I like the other translations he has read over the years. Have you read Leskov?
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