s the shelter, and who
herself has relations with Pepel, and does not intend to let him slip
through her fingers. She even wishes him to make away with her husband
in order that she may live undisturbed with the thief.

This is repulsive to Pepel.

At this crisis the wanderer Luka makes his appearance. He wants to
help every one. He is the apostle of goodness and humanity. He finds
a tender word for the dying wife of the locksmith. He talks to the
drunken actor about a Reformatory, where he can be cured of his
propensity for drinking. And he counsels Natasha to fly with Pepel
from these depths of iniquity. The keeper of the refuge hears this.
She torments her sister, and almost does her to death, with her
husband's assistance. Pepel is off his head with rage, and actually
fulfils the woman's wishes, by murdering her husband.

She is triumphant. And the wayfarer vanishes. In the last Act the
other wastrels are collected together. They are trying to clear up
their ideas of themselves, and of the world. One tells how the
wanderer thought the world existed only for the fittest--as in the
carpentering trade. All live--and work--and of a sudden comes one who
pushes the whole business forward by ten years.

[Illustration: Nastja (_Servant in "The Doss-house"_)]

"Man is the reality . . . Man who alone is really great . . . All is
in Man, all is for Man. . . . To the health of Man!" is the toast of
the former convict Satin.

"Be Men!" is the new watchword for Russia. And thus for Russians the
"Doss-house" came as a gospel, although Gorki has not yet wrought his
materials into the supreme conflict that must result in a really great
tragedy. "The Doss-house" is not that tragedy. It presents no titanic
action, no mighty fate, no clashing shock to reveal the battle of the
great natural tendencies in Man, and give an immeasurable lift to our
conceptions of existence. There is still something that oppresses
us--there is too much puling and complaint. Criticism as a whole has
been deceived by the resounding and pathetic words which it has
accepted as a profound philosophy. Philosophy, however, is for the
study, not the stage. Our great philosophers have said all that Gorki
has put into the mouth of his outcasts, and said it far more forcibly.
His observations on the dignity of Man are his only original and
impressive contributions.

The critics have gone astray in another direction also. They have
insi