mong these, to my intense disgust, was a
translation of a little thing of my own, and also a collection of stories
by Leonide Andreief, translated by Serge Persky, and published by _Le
Monde Illustre_. Although I already possessed, in Montaigne, sustenance
for months, I bought this volume, and at once read it. A small book by
Andreief, "The Seven that were Hanged," was published in England--last
year, I think--by Mr. Fifield. It received a very great deal of praise,
and was, in fact, treated as a psychological masterpiece. I was
disappointed with it myself, for the very simple reason that I found it
tedious. I had difficulty in finishing it. I gather that Andreief has a
great reputation in Russia, sharing with Gorky the leadership of the
younger school. Well, I don't suppose that I shall ever read any more
Gorky, who has assuredly not come up to expectations. There are things
among the short stories of Andreief (the volume is entitled "Nouvelles")
which are better than "The Seven that were Hanged." "The Governor," for
example, is a pretty good tale, obviously written under the influence of
Tolstoy's "Death of Ivan Ilyitch"; and a story about waiting at a railway
station remains in the mind not unpleasantly. But the best of the book is
second-rate, vitiated by diffuseness, imitativeness, and the usual
sentimentality. Neither Andreief nor Gorky will ever seriously count.
Neither of them comes within ten leagues of the late Anton Tchehkoff. I
think there must be young novelists alive in Russia who are superior to
these two alleged leaders. I have, in fact, heard talk of one Apoutkine,
in this country of France, and I am taking measures to read him.

* * * * *

When at length I settled down in a small hotel in a village on the farther
coast of Brittany, I had read nothing but Andreief and criminal processes.
Nobody else in the hotel, save one old lady, read anything but criminal
processes. It is true that it was a sadly vulgar hotel. My fellow-guests
were mainly employees who had escaped for a fortnight from the big Paris
shops. In particular there was a handsome young woman from the fur
department of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, who (weather permitting)
spent half her morning in a kimono at her bedroom window while her husband
(perfumery department) discussed patriotism and feminism in the cafe
below. When I remember the spectacle, which I have often seen, of the
staff of the Grands Magasin