ully selected traits of people who live intensely.

In "The Disciple," we see a young sharper on a boat on the Volga. He
has the tired eyes of a precocious old man, stubby fingers, and the
hands of a murderer alert to strike the fatal blow. He has just
fleeced a party of travelers, and he discovers, in a savory
conversation with an old cheat, who has found him out, that his soul
is being consumed with insatiable desires. And as the old sharper
admires the "savoir-faire" of his young friend, the latter observes,
not without scorn, that they belong to two very different categories
of sharpers. "Among you old fellows," he sneers, "there was
romanticism. You loved beautiful women, champagne, music and the
song of the tziganes.... We, however, we others are tired of
everything. Fear and debauch are equally unknown to us...."

After the sharper we have the spy in "Captain Rybnikov." He passes
for a Siberian, and says that he has been wounded in the
Russo-Japanese war. He goes out into society a great deal, and is
most commonly seen in the military offices and in the best "salons"
of St. Petersburg. One night, when he is asleep at a courtesan's
house, he mutters the war-cry of Japan: "Banzai! Banzai!" The
courtesan denounces him to a policeman who happens to be there, and
the pseudo-captain, who is no other than a colonel in the Japanese
army, is arrested.

Before leaving the military world, let us analyze "The Delirium."
Captain Markov has been ordered by the government to suppress the
revolution in certain provinces. Disgusted with the duty of daily
executioner, the officer frets himself into a high fever. A
non-commissioned officer enters to ask him to decide the fate of
three men who have been arrested the previous night, one of whom is
an old man with a peaceful and strangely beautiful face. The
sergeant knows that they ought to be shot, but these executions are
so repulsive to him, that he is anxious to have the sentence of
death confirmed by his chief, who seems to him to have the sole
responsibility.

"I don't want you ever again to ask me such a question," cries
Markov, who has guessed the intention of his subordinate. "You know
what you ought to do." And he dismisses him. But the soldier remains
motionless.

"What else do you want?" asks the captain.

"The men," answers the stubborn soldier, "are anxious to know what
to do with the ... old ... man...."

"Get out of here!" the officer roars, exasperated. "Do