Лев Миколайович Толстой

Serving on a jury at the trial of a prostitute arrested for murder, Prince Nekhlyudov is horrified to discover that the accused is a woman he had once loved, seduced and then abandoned when she was a young servant girl. Racked with guilt at realizing he was the cause of her ruin, he determines to appeal for her …

"The Devil" is a novella by Leo Tolstoy. It was written in 1889, given an alternative ending in 1909, but published only posthumously in 1911. Like Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata, written around the same time, "The Devil" deals with the consequences of sexual emotion.