All language subtitles for The.Kreutzer.Sonata.1956.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.MX]

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The Kreutzer Sonata

based on the short story by Tolstoy

directed by Eric Rohmer.

No, it's not jealousy.

It's something far more horrible.

Hatred.

In which events took no part.

I killed her because her existence
was a flagrant repudiation

of all I admired,
all that mattered to me.

She was my living disavowal,

the constant denunciation
of my slightest desire

and most anodyne thought.

Why did we have to meet?

Why, from the very start,

didn't we look away from each other?

In that cellar,

where I saw her for the first time,

I had the impression

she would forever be inaccessible.

Is that why

I came to desire her

more than any girl I'd known?

What did I find so attractive about her?

Nothing? Something imperceptible?

The gently prominent cheekbones?

And perhaps that air of continual sadness
that imprinted

her smile even.

It was nearly one year ago.

Life smiled on me.

I loved my work as an architect

and could look forward
to a brilliant career.

I had my own practice.

I was landing major contracts.

After some difficult years,

I could finally call myself a success.

Was I happier?

What anxiety oppressed me
that late winter?

I feared I had sacrificed

my finest years to my ambition.

Feverishly,
I tried to make up for lost time,

while not daring to leave the scene

I frequented in my twenties.

I began to think of marriage,

not because I found solitude annoying,

but rather humiliating.

I thought that my self-esteem

also had a right to be satisfied.

I was bored

and doing nothing
to cast off my boredom.

That world had lost

its picturesque charm for me.

At most, the dismal apathy of those faces

could only serve as consolation.

And a wretched one, too.

I liked to tell myself these kids

were older than me.

Their fashions and fancies

were those I'd known ten years earlier.

I needed a gust of fresh air.

I'd gone to ground in a waxwork museum.

The old camaraderie was gone.

I was changing category,
to bourgeois, exploited.

Tourists, as they were known.

Only my long familiarity
with the neighborhood

maintained for the time being
my privileges.

I was a generation removed from them.

And her?

What was she looking for here?

She seemed as unlikely a bohemian as me.

There was, among the place's regulars,

a likeness that both of us had escaped,

which made us suspect.

I sensed in her the presence

of the same boredom,
the same vice, as mine,

which only made her more desirable.

More and more,

I was pained by this exile.

All the most threadbare artifices

were fine by me if I could preserve
my precarious prestige.

I took with me

one of my journalist friends.

The pretext

of an article on contemporary youth

made our presence less peculiar.

These tests

served as board games for us.

Naturally, our explanations

were fanciful.

But with our careful handling of egos,

everybody agreed to sit the exam.

I found it amusing.

It kept up appearances,

but deepened the chasm
that existed between them and me.

I wanted to bid farewell
to the neighborhood.

Why had I still not done so?

Was it her

holding me back?

I'd picked up some hints

that her fling was drawing to an end.

Our eyes had met once or twice,

and I'd seen in hers
barely concealed curiosity.

A feeble glimmer of hope

had started to flicker in me.

In fact, it was unusual

that a chance to make acquaintance

in that sealed environment

had not cropped up earlier.

Most disappointing
was that first contact,

which, as chance would have it,

revolved around psychology.

I thought I detected in her a mystery

that perhaps wasn't one.

I was surprised by the banality,

the prosaicness, of her replies.

That which I had named anxiety,

profound torment,

was doubtless indifference,

weakness of character.

But it hurt to admit I was wrong

and I failed to resist temptation.

That lack of willpower

led me to foresee an easy conquest.

Hypocritically,
I could not have been more thrilled.

Yes, I had only disdain
for her credulity.

Just as she must have disdained

my abundance of precaution
in seducing her.

Lacking in self-confidence,
she wanted someone who might,

if not mistreat her, keep her on track,

giving her a sense of direction
she could not find herself.

I...

I thought only of adapting to her.

Of studying her.

Studying her.

Or so I thought,

whereas I was the toy
of my own imagination.

Was it really her

there, before my eyes?

How could I be so blind?

I gave her a fictitious substitute,

that ideal woman
every 16-year-old dreams of.

I filled her silences

and misapprehended my own device.

I demanded nothing from her

other than not demolishing
by sudden honesty

my laborious assembly.

It was marriage I had in mind,

and marriage alone.

She meant very little to me,

as long as, at the appointed time,

she took her place
in the plan I'd drawn up,

at an age when I felt I deserved
what I foolishly called love, happiness.

All that mattered was success,
matching events to my outlook.

Far from being surprised
by my easy victory,

I saw there
the mark of destiny smiling on me.

I merely had to pick the ripe fruit.

Everything was in my favor.

Half-abandoned studies,

the prospect of moving back home,

and perhaps her recent romantic breakup.

Unsure of my strengths,

I dangled before her eyes
the circles I moved in.

However drab for me,

in her gray life,
they must have dazzled.

Just up from the provinces,

where the boys her age mistreated her,

the solicitude of my friends and I
won her over to marriage

with a rapidity
I would not have suspected.

Why did she say yes?

And so fast?

Ambition?

Advantage?

She could have found a wealthier match.

Heartbreak?

Weariness?

Or weakness in the face of my insistence?

Because I was able, at that moment,
to flatter her vanity?

Had she renounced love?

And, prepared for the worst,

did she think that this decision

was no more absurd than another?

Had she promised herself
to exploit the weakness

she discerned in me?

In one peak of fury,

I accused her of giving in
to despair and sordid calculations.

It is clear she didn't love me
for a single moment.

Always the same stony face,
the same hostile passivity.

The same resigned indolence.

This marriage evidently revolted her.

Yet, to all appearances,

no union ever
was more freely consented to.

I always respectfully
requested her opinion,

thinking I was attentive
to her freedom and mine.

It flattered my pride,

and that was the main thing.

What would happen after?

I was concerned about the "after."

I didn't want to think about it.

How could I have been so wrong?

I thought a new era
was opening up before me

without comparison
to any I had experienced.

I looked forward to leaving the world

where my youth had gone by,

and which I now saw as pale and rigid.

I scorned others
for sinking into a rut,

cultivating the same dreary pleasures

that I had for too long enjoyed.

I could feel sorry for them,

dazzled as I was
by what I pompously called

by the name of love.

Was I truly in love?

I don't believe so now.

My pride alone was at stake.

I was proud to see on their faces

that benevolent irony,

which so flattered my vanity.

Their barely concealed envy

was the best encouragement,

my purest pleasure,

perhaps the sum of my happiness.

For me, it was an adequate verdict.

My only genuine emotion
was the joy that verdict brought.

I indulged my scorn of my past.

I saw not even the rockiest foundation
to build the life I wanted now.

I failed to notice boredom
piercing our constrained cheer.

The grimace that our smile
struggled to conceal.

Only a few months had passed
since our wedding

when I had to face the terrible fact...

I had been wrong about her.

As she had, I suppose, about me.

Never had two beings
been less made for each other than us.

We continued to smile out of politeness.

Habit.

Self-esteem.

It hurt us to admit our mistake
to ourselves.

For fear of destroying everything,

I kept putting off
the time for an honest conversation.

I'd hoped the concerns of married life
would smooth over our differences.

I was expecting from her
a word or sign that never came.

I try in vain to remember
her ever showing the slightest affection.

Everything in her attitude intimated

I should be happy
simply to have her as my wife.

But there was never any love between us.

And there never would be.

Others have known problem beginnings.

My sin, my crime, was to refuse
to bend to the common law.

To believe that besides a fairy tale,
crumbling day by day,

nothing else was possible.

Friendship, esteem, seemed to me

to be too prosaic.

I could not accept
that painstakingly won happiness

was preferable
to the most beautiful myth.

Light-headed from the summit air,

eyes on the peak, the best,

I glimpsed the slope down to the worst

and was mesmerized by its giddy curve.

It was already impossible
to climb back up.

We realized we had nothing to say
to each other.

Our projects went nowhere.

Our apartment was as cold
as the day I moved in.

We both lived in separate worlds.

In an incommunicable dream.

What was hers?
What did she think about?

Her misfortune?

Her mistake?

Why not try accusing me?

Why this silence?

Why this disdain?

Hatred insidiously took root inside me.

As, I suspected, it took root in her.

This stage, which every couple

has to get through at least once,

blocked my horizon with a line

that I thought and wanted
to be definitive.

When the first fights broke out,

I was relieved to feel
a particular pleasure,

which replaced for me
the pleasure of loving

and being loved.

The rages

and hypocritical reconciliations,

in other people,
would have struck me as vulgar, sordid.

Yet I accorded them a virtue,
a grandeur, they did not possess.

I called it living at last.

Anything seemed preferable
to the dull boredom we were flailing in.

I dared to hope

these petty storms would provoke
the desired rapprochement.

But I sensed my anger was only paused.

And I'd be the plaything of a force

I had never encountered,

but I relished in advance
its exhilaration.

That was my state of mind
when I first met him this winter.

An up-and-coming critic,

he asked me to collaborate on an article.

He had talent.

Our tastes were as similar
as our personalities were different.

The contrast,

far from dividing us, brought us closer.

Keen to lose myself,

I have always loved the company

of friends very different from me.

My wife, of course,
showed him a long face.

As with everyone I introduced her to.

Anything that had any connection to me,

my friends, my likes,

my admirations,

ever found favor with her.

I was irritated

but also flattered

that she snubbed us all alike.

I knew women liked him
so I was on my guard.

My disarray at the time was such
that I was prey

to the most contradictory ideas.

While wanting him to entertain her

and put on her face
the smile I hadn't seen for months,

I also hoped, on the contrary,

that she would despise him,

denigrate my admiration
and try her best to sap our friendship.

That's what I wanted deep down,

but I sensed reality would be
the exact opposite of my wishes.

It was like a test
I wanted to put her through.

If his presence riled her,
I said to myself,

everything may yet be saved.

On the other hand,
if he had the slightest effect on her,

our marriage clearly was the fruit
of the saddest misunderstanding ever.

I gambled.

And lost.

Any hopes I had left were blown away

by my first suspicions.

Hatred implanted itself in me
definitively.

Nothing would be able

to dislodge it.

That evening, I distinctly perceived,
for the first time,

the exact nature of the anger
slowly massing inside me.

We were both lost in our concerns,
our momentary intrigues.

I was consumed by jealousy and despair.

Her and him,
their harmony and joy,

consumed my thoughts.

Yet, I perceived just as distinctly
each stroke of the bow,

or of the keys of the piano.

Such a terrible thing is music.

Those who say it soothes
and ennobles are wrong.

It merely communicates

a sense of excitement.

Excitement that is pure
and without outlet.

It multiplies your inner torment

without bringing you the food
to satisfy it.

The fury of the first presto,

so well attuned to my thoughts
that evening,

far from being in itself fulfillment,

added a thousand tangents.

I knew only that something had to happen,

the most violent

and terrible thing possible.

No, music does not soothe.

Like alcohol or drugs,

it drapes in artificial grandeur
our most vile sentiments.

It espouses movements, base or noble,
drives them to demented heights,

allows us to see only them,
and urges us to obey.

Nothing else mattered but my anger.

I cradled it, pampered it, relished it,
like a new love.

It was my only friend, my only support.

My only refuge.

Between the poverty and banality
of the world where the others languished

and the fascinating beauty
of the one my fury revealed,

there was no possible comparison.

I was to wholly accept
abandoning myself to her,

slave to her every whim and wish.

I was to follow her
with requisite submissiveness

wherever she indicated,

or demanded,

including to madness,

to catastrophe.

To crime.

She loved him.

The truth could not fail to leap out
to the blindest of eyes.

Now, she reserved
her smiles and glances for him.

Her fond words.

Of which there'd been none for me.

He alone would have
the spectacle of her abandonment.

Of her joy.

It wasn't supposed to be.

It had no right to exist.

And yet,

it was a few steps from me,

almost before my eyes.

My outbursts now
no longer caused me remorse.

All I knew was that, every time,
they would be more violent.

There was no limit anymore.

Any pretext would do. Any absence.

Any telephone call.

I wished I could destroy her. Crush her.

Dissolve her
until no morsel of herself was left.

But I knew it was impossible.

Not yet possible.

My anger had not gained the strength
to go so far.

Vestiges of goodwill and conscience

brought even the most delirious outbreaks
to an end.

She thought I was putting on an act,
trying to scare her.

When I was merely ridiculous.

Her reaction mattered little.

It was like a rehearsal
for the grand finale,

which was bound to happen,
sooner or later.

It was too serious, too terrible,

to burst out all of a sudden,

without a test, without a blunder,
without repentance.

Why didn't she leave?

I think I'd have let her run.

Did she not take my anger seriously?

Had he been toying with her perhaps?

Before breaking up,
did she want to be sure he was sincere?

It occurred to me
she was playing for time,

and found it better to pretend.

Her dissembling disappointed me,

while reassuring
my more reasonable self.

At this point, the tiniest spark
would have set it all off in flames.

In my moments of calm,

I clung to everything,
truth or deception mutually accepted,

that postponed the imminence
of the final blaze.

She promised never to see him again.

I was naive enough
not to doubt her word,

believing her incapable
not only of deep attachment,

but also of being faithful to a caprice.

So I took her at her word,
and apparent calm reigned

for a week or two.

Then came an intense period at work,

which often kept me out of the house.

One evening,
when I came home without warning,

the familiar smell of Turkish cigarettes,

a spotlessly clean ashtray,

left no more room for doubt
about the number she was performing.

It was like an ice-cold shower.

Surprising calm

gave way to my anger.

If she was seeing him here,
it wouldn't be hard to catch them out.

I decided to act cheerful,

obliging her in turn to do likewise.

She played her part well enough

to fortify my resolve.

At the earliest possible opportunity,
I invented a business trip.

It was this very morning.

The imminence of the conclusion
suddenly revived my former self.

My only fear
was that my ruse would be in vain.

No! Anything rather than the failure
of my stratagem.

If I caught them,
it would feel atrocious.

A brutal end to the doubts

that lingered with no good reason.

But nothing was more painful
than those doubts.

What could bring me out of them,

other than the irrevocable?

My pain was so strong

that I was tempted to go far away
and never come back.

Then I thought that a walk

and the cool air would do me good.

Briefly, I envisioned
leaping in front of a truck

to end it all faster.

But it would play into her hands.

And what mattered
unhappiness or happiness?

All that counted now was my revenge.

What would happen exactly?

I could not say.

It would depend on them, on me,
and above all on my anger.

I'd let her go as far as she could
on her own, to guide me

and take all necessary initiatives.

It was a relief to think
that his superior strength

would stop me fighting cold-bloodedly.

It would be no-holds-barred.

I'd grab anything within reach.

Paperweight, lamp, chair...

Or the knife on the shelf in the hall,

where the scene
would probably take place.

Yes, I would fight.

Stupidly, like a fool.

Not to hurt him,

since I had never managed to hate him,

but because it was the natural outlet
for my fury,

because the dream
nurtured by my imagination

needed to find at last
its match in reality.

He left, ducked out.

Everything so far
had been ordinary, licit.

And she

kept looking at me
with that cold, disdainful gaze,

barely any more frightened than usual.

I needed my ebbing anger
to recharge fast.

One more second
and the time would have gone.

Everything happened as I thought,

but not exactly
how I thought it would.

All I dreamed of doing blindly,

in the thickest mist,

I carried out in complete awareness.

The gestures my fury showed me
in my imagination

were dictated in the event
by the clearest resolve.

At each moment,
I knew what I was doing,

all in time to a necessary progression,

an inevitable sequence of events.

Nothing could prevent me
from finishing my undertaking.

As if the horror of the end

justified, magnified all the hesitations,

all the uncertainties,

which from the start
had defined its route.