hich now forbids him to do it, now urges him on.
Then, like the "half-insane" or those sick people who feign madness
in order more easily to attain their end, this man suggests to
himself that he is in reality insane. This idea gets a hold on him
after the murder and fills his soul with mortal terror, the exposure
of which forms the most supremely pathetic part of the whole story.
All this drama of a foundering intelligence, complicated by bizarre
contradictions, is developed with a penetrating power of analysis.

Andreyev tells us that on the day of judgment the alienists are
divided as to the insanity of Kerzhenzev. The story ends at this
place. But the principal interest of the story does not lie in this
or that solution of the problem, which is not mysterious, for the
doctor is doubtlessly abnormal, and it is only as to the degree of
insanity that there can be any question. The main interest lies in
another direction, in the subtle analysis of this special mental
condition, which is done with consummate art.

This story had the honor of occupying an entire meeting of the
psychiatrists attached to the Academy of Medicine of St. Petersburg.
According to the report of Dr. Ivanov, the assembly was almost
unanimous in declaring the murderer insane. Another psychiatrist,
who thought he saw proofs of an abnormal mentality in all the
stories of Andreyev, pronounced the same verdict against Dr.
Kerzhenzev, in a meeting of doctors.

* * * * *

"All of priest Vassily Fiveyisky's life was weighed down by a cruel
and enigmatic fatality,"--it is thus that the story, "The Life of a
Pope," opens. "As if struck by an unknown malediction, he had from
his youth been made to carry a heavy burden of sorrows, sickness and
misfortunes; he was solitary among men as a planet is among planets;
a peculiar and malevolent atmosphere surrounded him. Son of an
obscure, patient, and submissive village priest, he also was patient
and submissive, and he was a long time in recognizing the
particular rancour of destiny. He fell rapidly and arose slowly.
Twig by twig he restored his nest. Having become a priest, the
husband of a good woman, the father of a son and a daughter, he
thought that all was going well with him, that all was solidly
established, and that he would remain thus forever. And he blessed
God."

But fate was always on the watch for him. It had showed him
happiness only to take it away again. After