es and a new civilisation.
Nor that many chasms must for ever be left yawning. They do not
appreciate the peculiar pride which Gorki expresses in this romance, in
such a classic and touching manner, in the character of the girl
student. Nor do they perceive that these aspirants possess much that
is lacking in themselves--and that not particularly to their credit.
Gorki knows that aspiration is not fulfilled without inward struggle
and travail. And it is with a subtle psychological instinct that he
endows the men who are struggling upward out of adversity with a deep
craving for purity. Noble souls are invariably characterised by
greater sensitiveness to delicacy, and this is equally the
characteristic of those who are yearning to rise above their low
environment. It is not from external filth alone that a man seeks to
cleanse himself, but from inward corruption also. And so he strives,
and strives again, for purity--and falls the deeper in the mire.

[Illustration: Concluding scene (_Act III. of "The Doss-house"_)]

Few writers share the happy recklessness peculiar to Gorki. He is free
from false modesty, like his young moujik, who is compelled by his
desire for purity--not by any conventional remorse--to proclaim his
relations with his landlady and commercial partner, the shopkeeper's
wife, before all their acquaintances, at one of her entertainments--and
also to announce himself as the murderer of the old money-lender. Nor
is it the guilty sense of Raskolnikov that impels this moujik to
confession and reparation. It is his repugnance for the men in
contrast with whom he stands out as an ideal and promising figure.

And it is here that Gorki seems to us almost to surpass Dostoevsky.
Raskolnikov is a murderer on theory, a penitent out of weakness.
Gorki's murderer, however, kills from inward compulsion. His act, his
acknowledgment of it, all is sheer naive necessity. Here is a man who
feels no compunction for having crushed a worm.

Who, in last resort, is the man that repents his deeds? Of all the
criminals we have encountered in doss-houses, shelters, and
labour-colonies, scarce a single one. And the deed came nearly always
like a flash from the blue. Implacable, dire, and for the most part
unconscious compulsion, but no premeditated volition, drove them to it.
And here Gorki is a true creator, even if as artist he ranks below
Dostoevsky.

[Illustration: The actor (_From "The Doss-house"_)]

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