hirtieth year, that the sacred
fire was going out.

He now dreamed only of his personal happiness, and of poor theories
that justified this egoism. An assured material existence, comfort,
a happy domestic life, work without risks, without sacrifices, but
useful enough in appearance to satisfy the conscience, attracted him
irresistibly. He then went to work to tear out his former ideas,
which had taken a pretty firm root. Urged on by his conscience,
which protested, he forced himself at times to resurrect his
youthful enthusiasm; he thought a great deal about morals, about
duty, and he read many books treating this subject; he says: "I
feel that something extremely necessary has left me. My feelings
about humanity have disappeared and nothing can replace them. I read
a great deal now, and I am directing my thoughts towards ethics. I
try to give morality a solid basis and I try to make clearer to
myself the various categories of duty.... And I blush to pronounce
the word, 'Duty.'"

Nevertheless, Tokarev tries, at times, to justify his inclinations
towards peaceable bourgeois prosperity to the struggling youth who
surround his sister Tanya. These cruel young people, however, answer
him only with sarcastic remarks, and caustic arguments, and do not
hesitate to express their doubts as to the sincerity of his
opinions. To his conscience, they are like a living reproach from
the past. Once he also was intolerant towards others as these people
are towards him to-day. And that is why he suffers under their
condemnation of him. He defends himself weakly, and after one of his
oratorical tilts, he falls into such spiritual depression, that he
almost thinks of suicide.

These, then, are the three main characters of Veressayev's novel. In
the background we have the secondary characters. We have the proud
proprietor and his wife, both of them liberals; we have the
pedagogue Osmerkov, who does not like talented people because they
bother everybody; and then there are the respectable inhabitants of
Gniezdelovka, Serge's father and mother, who are entirely absorbed
with their household and with cards.

* * * * *

"The Comrades" is a variation on this theme: old school friends, who
formerly had been wrapped up in a great ideal, are now living a life
of shabby prosperity, and they feel that they have deteriorated,
although they do not dare to confess it to each other.

And Veressayev profits by this