to generalize on the causes of this
fatal fall after the unselfish enthusiasms of youth. He sees them
especially in a mysterious force: "The Invisible," already studied
by Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Tchekoff, and especially by de Maupassant;
and he sees them in the unhappy conditions of Russian history, which
created a social and political organization favorable only to those
who crawl along and not to those who plan.

* * * * *

Let us now analyze the stories in which Veressayev describes the
life of the people.

The story of "The Steppe" is as follows: One beautiful autumn
evening two men meet on the steppe. One of them, the forger Nikita,
is returning to his native land; he is wounded in the leg and it is
hard for him to walk. He is looking for work. The other is a
professional beggar.

The beggar, who is never hungry because he has no scruples, offers
Nikita something to eat. After resting a short while, the travelers
continue on their way. In the first village that they come to, the
pilgrim beggar makes a speech to the inhabitants and sells them
certain "sacred properties" which he keeps in his bag. After
pocketing gifts of money and various other things, the false pilgrim
pursues his way, still accompanied by Nikita. On the road once more,
he offers to share with his comrade the fruits of his "work," but
the latter refuses.

"What a fool!" cries the beggar, and bursts out laughing. But
Nikita, indignant, gives him a heavy blow and leaves him for good.

"For a Home" and "In Haste" gave Veressayev an opportunity to note
one of the characteristic traits of the ambitious villagers: their
strong desire to preserve their homes and to propagate the race.

In the first of these stories, two old people, Athanasius and his
wife, want to marry their daughter Dunka, but the "mir,"--the
assembly of peasants,--egotistical and inflexible towards people who
are growing weak, oppose them. "We have not enough land for our own
children," is the answer of the "mir." Dunka remains unmarried, and
dies at an early age. Her mother soon follows her. Old Athanasius
lives alone in his freezing "isba," which is in a state of ruin,
while the neighboring isbas, solid and austere, "spitefully watch
him die."

In the last story, we have a widower who is the father of five
children, and is therefore looking everywhere for a woman with some
bodily defect, because he knows that other women will not want to
have a