others are badly treated. As
Alexandra wants to live honestly, her work in the shop is made very
hard. Her best friend, Tanya, who inadvertently spilled oil on some
paper and could not pay for the damage, had to give herself to the
foreman. Finally Tanya despairs and ends by drowning herself.
Alexandra is saved, thanks to a "loveless" marriage with the
locksmith, Lestmann. She accepts this union so that she will not
have to starve and can remain "straight." Thus, the "straight road"
which Alexandra wanted to follow has forced her finally to sell
herself, to marry a man whom she does not love.

* * * * *

Each page of Veressayev's work exists merely to throw light on this
or that social question, considered from a well defined point of
view. The secret of his success rests mostly in the frank, sincere
manner in which he has approached certain problems. At the same
time, all of his work breathes forth a deep and tender love for
those who suffer. In reality, there is not a single book by
Veressayev which might not be a confession; all that he writes he
has already experienced himself, and his work vibrates with a
delicate and personal emotion. It is only necessary to read "The
Memoirs of a Physician," which is almost an autobiography, in order
to perceive the moral relationship that exists between Veressayev
and the heroes of his stories.

This book is the confession of a physician from the time of his
early studies. The young man is astonished at the number of maladies
that exist and by the unbelievable variety of keen suffering that
nature inflicts upon the human species, man. Soon he is obliged to
make a discovery that stuns him: that medicine is incapable of
curing many evils. It only gropes about, trying thousands of
remedies before it arrives at a sure result. The scruples and
anxiety of the student increase, especially after an autopsy on a
woman in the amphitheatre, when the professor announces that the
woman has succumbed because the surgeon, who was operating, swooned,
and ends by saying: "In such difficult operations the very best
surgeons are not safe from accidents of this kind." After this, the
professor shook hands with his colleague and every one left. At that
time, doubt entered the mind of the young man. And so, within a
period of ten years, he passes from extreme optimism to the same
degree of pessimism.

We follow him in the hospitals, where he is scandalized by the