Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

August 17, 2020
A motley cast of Russian gentlewomen, Roma, and Old Believers populate this masterly collection from Leskov (1831–1895), a lesser-known contemporary of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy. In stories spanning the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars to the end of serfdom and subsequent reactionary crackdowns, Leskov conceives of a Russia that is at once lawless—Tatars mutilate a man’s feet to keep him captive in “The Enchanted Wanderer”—and courtly—the Tsar is moved to kiss the forehead of a troubled young man in “The Unmercenary Engineers.” Throughout, Leskov is preoccupied with characters whose beliefs become a kind of mania. In the title novella, Katerina Lvovna, a merchant’s wife, is driven to despair and eventually murder by her infatuation with a servant on her husband’s estate. In “The Sealed Angel,” a guild of Old Believers (a sect formed in the 17th century) is tormented by the loss of their icon. While the stories themselves have a far-ranging quality with regard to time and geography, their frame narratives (a story told by a hot stove during a blizzard, as in “The Sealed Angel”) have a cozy quality. The author clearly has a soft spot for characters who refuse to compromise, and their efforts are often met with tragedy. Leskov is a consummate stylist, and his stories breathe life into a bygone Russia that is as bewitching as it is cruel.