Redemption

Leo Tolstoy's Redemption unfolds as a searing drama of love, guilt, and moral reckoning, where private anguish collides with the stern pressures of society. In the Protosov household, Lisa's separation from her husband Fédya exposes a family split between judgment and compassion: Anna Pavlovna condemns him as ruined, while Lisa, devastated yet hopeful, asks Victor Karénin to carry a plea for reconciliation. Karénin's restrained tenderness, and the arrival of Lisa's mother, sharpen the play's central conflict between duty and forgiveness, outward respectability and inner truth. Elsewhere, Fédya drifts through a glittering gypsy world of song, wine, and impulsive desire, admitting he cannot return home even as he feels the wreckage he has caused. The emotional crisis widens when Sophia Karénina learns that her son Victor wants to marry Lisa, a woman who has left her husband, forcing a clash between maternal love, Christian principle, and romantic idealism. Against this backdrop, a rustic village subplot turns horrifying as a concealed birth leads Nikíta, Anísya, and Matryóna into a desperate act of infanticide, revealing the brutal consequences of secrecy, shame, and social pressure. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.