all the centuries of history. His heroes take
refuge in half-crumbled castles, they look at the reader from the
top of craggy rocks, whither their love of solitude has led them;
even death itself is not a repulsive skeleton, but rather a majestic
form, full of grandiose mystery. Andreyev, on the other hand, but
rarely breaks the bounds which unite him to reality. His heroes are
living people, who act, and whose banal life ends with a banal
death. This realism and this passionate love of truth make the
strength and the beauty of all his work.

* * * * *

A certain harmony between the imaginative and the real element is
characteristic of the best of Andreyev's productions, especially his
last stories: "The Red Laugh," "The Governor," "The Shadows," and
"The Seven Who Were Hanged."

"The Red Laugh" is the symbol, the incarnation, of the bloody and
implacable cynicism of war. The psychologist of the mysterious has,
in these pages, recorded the terrifying aspects of the Manchurian
campaign, which one could not have foreseen in all of its horror. He
has shown in a lasting manner the poor human creature torn from his
home, debased to the role of a piece of mechanism. Not knowing where
he is being led to, he goes, making murderous gestures, the meaning
of which he does not know, without even having the illusory
consolation of possible personal bravery, being killed by the shots
of an invisible enemy, or, what is worse, being killed by the shots
of his own comrades--and all of this, automatically, stupidly. The
feeling of terror, the somewhat mystical intuition of events which,
at times, seem to be paradoxes in the other works of Andreyev, are
perfectly adapted to this terribly real representation of the
effects of war.

The inner drama which Andreyev analyzes in "The Governor" makes a
bold contrast with the violent pages of "The Red Laugh," the savage
powers of which attain the final limits of horror.

The governor has during his whole life been a loyal and strict
servant of the Tsar. On the day of an uprising he mercilessly beat
the enemies of his master; he blindly accomplished what he thought
was his duty. But, since that bloody day, a new and unceasing voice
speaks in his conscience. The irreparable act has forever isolated
him from his fellow-creatures, and even from his friends who
congratulate him upon his fine conduct. A stranger to all that is
happening around him, he is left alon