Why does the French press commit blunders like these, which can lead only to misunderstanding? Alas, I can come to one conclusion only: people do not want to understand us.

'Yes,' someone may say to me, 'but you are an émigré yourself, a journalist who has lost contact with his country, a Bohemian, a kind of Wandering Jew. You do not know what is going on in Russia. The Russian soul is making itself anew before your eyes and you see nothing. Those who have studied it in Russia know it better than the Russian who has been torn from his fatherland.'

Well, they may be right these people who entertain me with these opinions, sometimes logical, sometimes trivial, but never proved. Yet even though handicapped pardon the sporting phrase — by the abyss yawning between the Russia of our dreams and the internationalized Russia of the Soviets, still we remain Russian, and we see only a complete lack of understanding where Russia is concerned. We see that Russia is falling into the most terrible oblivion, and that only conventional questions are being asked about her. It is our deep and constant friendship, almost our love, I might say, for France that requires us Russian writers and journalists of our generation to tell this truth frankly to our friends, even at the cost of appearing a trifle blunt. Recognizing our own faults and the errors of our judgment, nevertheless we insist on making known the truth which is so cleverly concealed by our enemies and by ignorance of Russian affairs.

Meantime the Russian writer, Maxim Gor'kii, who has just broken off his relations with Red Moscow, is publishing his impressions of the Russian soul. He finds immediate belief because he is an authority. Gor'kii is a man who ought to know a democrat him

self, of peasant origin, 'a self-made man,' and a talented writer, he has helped to organize and follow the whole development of the revolution. He has been able to study this strange soul. He had already founded a school of revolutionary propaganda before 1917. Surely from him we ought to hear praises of the Russian people, the holy Russian democracy, and the 'Russian soul.' But unhappily it is not so at all. Once a vagabond, Gor'kii has become rich. He has attained influence in the Soviets and now there are no crimes of which he does not accuse his people.

In a newspaper which snatched up immediately these words of Gor'kii's, I have just read that ours is the most barbarous, ferocious, the most cruel people in the world. Gor'kii mentions horrible examples with almost Sadistic joy.

Himself a waif of the great revolution for which he cleared the way, and which he saw degenerate into massacre and famine, he blames all its horror on the unfortunate people who gave him his fortune and his glory, and made of him their judge, almost their god. He was one of the organizers of Bolshevism, he was one of those who spurred on the Russian soul to its moral downfall. Was he not a forerunner of this accursed and cruel revolution when he devoted his great talent to hymning the favorite heroes of his novels, these bosiaki (vagabonds) who after all are nothing but idealist apaches?

A renegade is always one of the most malignant beings and the most effective slanderer. When he pronounces this sacred formula, 'the Russian soul,' I foresee danger in the chance that someone may believe these calumnies. With his talent Gor'kii is strengthening the chorus of those who prate about 'the Russian soul.'

If we take extracts from Zola's La Terre, or from Germinal, we see in

stances of terrible cruelty, but is that the French soul? I do not wish to exalt the Russian character. I wish neither to deny its vices nor to exalt its great virtues. A friend of that France which we Russians hope always to see side by side with us, I see a danger in this formula and I utter a warning:

Study Russia, study our history, read our great masters. Come closer to us and do not do it solely by such en

chanted excursions as that of Herriot, the Socialist Mayor and Deputy of Lyon, to Moscow. The Russian soul is not altogether mysterious for him who wishes to understand, and even if it were we should have to seek for the key to the mystery and not credit slanders instantly merely because they magnify the importance of an abominable label with absolutely nothing behind it.

WE heard that some people named Chivers had taken the Wyverns, and I opened out affably to Mr. Chivers when I overtook and identified him on our hill. I said I hoped they were pleased with their house and with the place generally. 'We are quiet here,' I said, 'but for those who care for the country it is n't a bad place.' Chivers said that he preferred nature to anything, and he mentioned that his half-brother, another lover of nature, was coming to stay with them as soon as they were settled. 'Of course,' he said, 'his specialty is old china.' I said that my wife was very much interested in it too, and that I was sure she would like to compare notes with his brother.

The next day I happened to travel with Blakiston, and I asked him whether he knew Chivers. I said I had spoken to him, and that he seemed a decent fellow. Blakiston said he did n't know him, but he knew his brother. My recently acquired knowledge

prompted me to say, 'Is that the halfbrother?'

'Half-brother?' said Blakiston; 'he has n't a half-brother.'

'Yes, he has,' I said. 'He told me so. Interested in old china.'

'Curious!' said Blakiston. 'I never heard of a half-brother.'

'Is there a stepbrother?' I said. 'But I'm sure he said half-brother.'

'Nothing of the kind,' said Blakiston. He might have been annoyed.

It was a day or two later that I met Blakiston at a tea-shop, and after greetings he said: 'See that man in the corner? That's Harold Chivers. I'll introduce you.' He did so, and we sat down at his table. Presently I said that I understood he was very much interested in china. He said: 'No; we do a bit with Singapore, but our main trade is with India.'

I said: 'Oh, but I mean old china.' 'I've never got up much interest in history,' he said, 'but I believe

'Yes, porcelain, you know,' I said persuasively.

'I know nothing about it,' he said, 'and don't care a damn.'

'Have you a half-brother?' I said sternly.

He said: 'No; old Sam, who has just become your neighbor, is the only one.' 'But I understood from him,' I said, 'that you are his half-brother.'

'You understood wrong, then,' he said. He was rather 'short,' and I did n't pursue the subject. I said that I supposed he was coming out to stay with his brother very soon, and he said: 'Not if I know it.' So that subject dropped too. I could n't make out whether Blakiston was or was not making signals to me.

That same evening I came across Chivers our Chivers as we left the station, and I said at once: 'I was introduced to your brother to-day. By the by, did n't you say he was a halfbrother?'

'Certainly,' said Chivers.

'But he says not,' I blurted out.
'Poor Jim!' said Chivers.

'I thought his name was Harold!' I cried.

'So it is,' he said, 'but he's always Jim to me.'

I waited for an explanation, but it did n't come; so I said it was rather cold for the time of year. Chivers said that his thermometer this morning was lower than it had been in April for seven years.

'You keep a record, then?' I said. 'Always,' said he. And he added that if this went on we might want a plumber to mend our burst pipes. I told him that he would find Parkinson a good man whenever he needed anything done in that way, and he said: 'I've had him. Indeed, he's working for me now.'

It appeared that a rat had gnawed through a lead pipe and caused a leakage. 'What did it do it for?' I said weakly. He said it was impossible to say, but that its body had been found beside the pipe, which showed the teeth marks very plainly. Evidently the rat had died of lead poisoning. Parkinson had tackled the job in a workmanlike way.

I mentioned this to Isabel when I got home and she said: 'Well, that's strange. Parkinson has been down for a week with pneumonia.'

'It must be his man,' I said.

'He has n't got a man; only a boy who comes and looks and then goes away.'

As to the temperature, Isabel said it was nonsense. Unquestionably it was warmer than it had been earlier in the week. We stared at one another in some perplexity.

Chivers began to exercise a kind of fascination over me. He made so many puzzling statements. He said that he used to play cricket with the Whalley Range Club and that his average over a term of years was seventeen. I said I could n't remember his name, and he said that for reasons he need n't go into now he always played under the name Peabody. I could n't remember that name either, and though we must have been contemporaries I could swear that he had never been in the eleven when I played against them. Perhaps he had forgotten to mention that it was the second eleven he played for. I had a delicacy about pursuing inquiries.

And then he asserted that he had taken a small part in Hamlet when Miss Horniman put it on at the Gaiety Theatre. 'It's a long cast, as you know,' he said, 'and she got two or three of us to help her.'

Now Miss Horniman never did put on Hamlet. However, I thought I would fool him to the top of his bent, and I said: "You played Reynaldo, did n't you?' He nodded. Of course Reynaldo is invariably cut out in performance. What was he up to?

One ceased to make any attempt at explanation or reconciliation of his various statements. It had become only too clear that Chivers was a liar. He lied with great frequency, and I suppose that those in his environment knew about this peculiarity. It is impossible to lie all the time, because life cannot be carried on without indicating needs or expectations occasionally. But Chivers slipped in a lie wherever he could, and he did n't trouble to make it plausible.

Why did he do it? I suppose it was a kind of disease. Perhaps he had practised 'kidding' as a boy and it had grown upon him till he did it instinctively, joylessly. I think there are a good many liars in the world, but they don't know their state; they are like the weak-minded people who gradually become insane. The strange thing about Chivers was his moderation. He did n't claim to have accomplished great feats or give wildly exaggerated accounts of things. Anyone might have had a half-brother, and an average of seventeen for Whalley Range is respectable, but nothing to boast about. This moderation was staggering; he lied because he preferred a lie to the truth.

I wondered whether it would be possible to cure Chivers, to improve him a little, even to disconcert him. I

thought I would try, so I began to tell him tall stories of my supposed experiences. The difference between us was that I made no attempt at moderation; my lies were open and palpable.

I told him I had been invited to join the next Everest expedition if I could get my weight down a couple of stone - 'you know I used to climb a little,' I said. Chivers stared at this, and when I went on to say that I had to lunch at Buckingham Palace on Friday he got very uneasy. 'Fact is,' I said, 'that the Queen liked a little thing of mine she saw in a magazine and wanted to meet me. And, by the by, Chivers,' I continued, 'do you know anything of the etiquette for an occasion like this? Do I go in a topper and a morning coat or would a navy-blue suit with doublebreasted coat and a bowler be the thing?'

I pursued poor Chivers with this kind of stuff. He changed his morning train to avoid me, but I watched for him to come down the hill and pounced out. I told him that Lloyd George had asked for my candid opinion about Liberal unity, that I had gained the Nobel Prize for literature, that our tomcat had kittened. He became a hunted man. I went on being cruel only to be kind. I thought sometimes that, as an artist, he suffered from the crudity of my work; I certainly was n't moderate. He got away for a holiday, but I started on him as soon as he came back. I wasn't surprised to hear that he had sold his house. He went off without saying good-bye. But for weeks before he went he had n't said a word to me that was not, I'm sure, strictly true.

I hear that he has gone to live in Southport. I think I shall call on him when I go over there to see if there has been any backsliding.

WHY should I now write my reminiscences of Leonid Andreev? Have I memories of him worth recalling? Did we ever work together? Never. Did we often meet? Very seldom, indeed. Did we ever have significant conversations? Once we did have an important talk together; but it made little impression upon either of us, and it had such a tragi-comic ending that I prefer not to dwell upon it. Did I love Leonid Andreev? I do not know. Have I been an ardent admirer of his genius? I cannot say so unreservedly.

Yet I feel that I possess memories of Andreev that are full of meaning. They cover the ten years during which we were acquainted or was it unacquainted? The significance of these memories lies in the fact that they relate to the common source from which both of us drew inspiration.

My memories are barren of incident; but I always felt that a bond existed between Andreev and myself. At our infrequent meetings we spoke of this; but with an irritating hesitation and awkwardness that invariably chilled us and made us feel like strangers.

For this reason what I shall write now will be cheerless and melancholy. It will be a tale of two people who in their hearts understood each other, but could not or would not express the fact in words. I speak of this the more freely because this spiritual loneliness was not

due to my fault alone; and most of us are spiritually lonely.

The history of the years between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 is essentially a tale of solitary inspiration for Russian art. But this lonely inspiration was also the best fruit of that epoch.

Men may object that even during those years there were literary societies, and periodicals, and publishers, who gathered around them people of kindred tendencies and schools. All this is true

or seemed to be; only it does not change my opinion, because these movements were sterile of results.

My attitude toward Andreev was determined before I knew him personally; and acquaintance did not modify my feeling. I recall the tremendous impression made on me by The Life of Vassili of Thebes, which I read on a rainy autumn night at my country house. Nothing is now left of those places dear to me, where I spent the best years of my life; perhaps the old linden trees still whisper in solitude - if they have been spared.

However, I knew even then that all of us were facing parlous times; that the catastrophe was near at hand; that the monster was lurking at the portal. I knew it even before the first revolution; and The Life of Vassili of Thebes confirmed me in this opinion, as did later Red Laughter and, with unusual