ome
such little prosaic stroke or other as will suddenly knock you all in a
heap, like a blow on the forehead..."

It is in such little prosaic strokes; everyday, accustomed,
characteristic trifles; minute particles of life, that Kuprin excels.
The detailism which crowds his pages is like the stippling of Whistler;
or the enumerations of the Bible; or the chiselling of Rodin, that
endows the back of the Thinker with meaning.

"We all pass by these characteristic trifles indifferently, like the
blind, as though not seeing them scattered about under our feet. But an
artist will come, and he will look over them carefully, and he will
pick them up. And suddenly he will so skillfully turn in the sun a
minute particle of life, that we shall all cry out: 'Oh, my God! But I
myself--myself!--have seen this with my own eyes. Only it simply did
not enter my head to turn my close attention upon it.' But our Russian
artists of the word--the most conscientious and sincere artists in the
whole world--for some reason have up to this time passed over
prostitution and the brothel. Why? Really, it is difficult for me to
answer that. Perhaps because of squeamishness, perhaps out of
pusillanimity, out of fear of being signalized as a pornographic
writer; finally from the apprehension that our gossiping criticism will
identify the artistic work of the writer with his personal life and
will start rummaging in his dirty linen. Or perhaps they can find
neither the time, nor the self-denial, nor the self-possession to
plunge in head first into this life and to watch it right up close,
without prejudice, without sonorous phrases, without a sheepish pity,
in all its monstrous simplicity and everyday activity... That
material... is truly unencompassable in its significance and
weightiness... The words of others do not suffice--even though they be
the most exact--even observations, made with a little note-book and a
bit of pencil, do not suffice. One must grow accustomed to this life,
without being cunningly wise..."

"I believe, that not now, not soon--after fifty years or so--but there
will come a writer of genius, and precisely a Russian one, who will
absorb within himself all the burdens and all the abominations of this
life and will cast them forth to us in the form of simple, fine, and
deathlessly--caustic images. And we shall all say: 'Why, now, we
ourselves have seen and known all this, but we could not even suppose
that this is so horri