haracterisation of the men is beyond reproach. Each has his
purpose, and bears upon the murderer: the women, however, are not
wholly satisfactory.

Gorki is crushingly ruthless to the wives of the householders and
officials. He heaps them with vices. They are not merely vulgar in
money matters. They are pitiful in their sexual affairs, and, in fact,
in all relations. Gorki's harlots on the contrary always have some
compelling, touching, noble trait. One of the prostitutes bewails her
wasted life. Another craves to share all the sufferings of the man who
has committed murder for her sake. A third is possessed with a sudden
passion for truth. And that in the Justice Room, though she knows that
her lover, sitting opposite her, is doomed if she deserts him.

At this point Gorki seems, indeed, to have deliberately abjured his
intimate knowledge of certain classes of the community. A prostitute
always lies to the end. Particularly for the benefit of her lover.
Her life is essentially not calculated to make her a fanatic for truth.
If she learns anything, indeed, in her persecuted and despised
profession, it is the art of lying. Never during a prolonged
acquaintance with brothels and houses of bad repute have we
encountered a truth-loving prostitute. Gorki, however, needed her for
his work. Her confession removes the last obstacle to the confession
of the murderer. It cuts away the last prop beneath the undermined dam.

And yet it first arouses our suspicion of the probity and reality of
Gorki's types. Why should he be so emotional in some places while in
others he can be so hard and harsh? He has not yet arrived at
representation without prejudice.

And then we ask: "How far can his characterisations in general be
accepted?"

Gorki often sacrifices probability to polemics. Too often he is merely
the emotional controversialist. Bias and Life are with him not always
welded into the harmonious whole, which one is entitled to claim from
the genuine artist.

To the Teutonic mind the individual works of Gorki, _e.g._, the novel,
"Three Men," still appear gloomy and sombre. As a whole, too, they
affect us sadly; they are oppressive.

Yet we must remember that Gorki attacks life with a certain primitive
force and urgency, and that he has a passion for courageous and capable
individuals. It is here that his experiences are to his advantage.
They have steeled him. Each of his works presents at least one