tion of this pessimism.

When the curtain rises, "some one in grey," holding a torch, informs
the audience that Man is about to be born. From this time on, his
life, lighted like a lamp, will burn until death extinguishes it.
And Man will live, docile and obedient to the orders that come to
him from On-High, through the intermediary of this "some one," whom
he does not know. Each act of the play represents a period in the
life of Man. In the first act, Man has acquired riches and glory,
and is found feasting with his friends in his sumptuous home. The
guests are enchanted with their host, whom they envy. But happiness
is a fugitive shadow; it soon betrays the man, who becomes poor,
loses his son, falls into the most abject misery, and dies in a
filthy and infected cellar, surrounded by vile beggars, while the
torch, held by "some one in grey," begins to grow weaker, and then
dies out. And the man, conscious of his powerlessness to conquer
fate, and conscious of his weakness in face of the mysterious "some
one in grey," confounds in the same malediction God, Satan,
Fatality, and Life, who have united to annihilate him.

The themes of the "King of Famine" and "Black Masks" offer a certain
analogy to the theme of "The Life of Man."

From the top of a belfry the "King of Famine," in company with
"Time" and "Death," incites a workingmen's revolt. He inspires them
with an absolute certainty of victory, although he can see that the
revolt will be quelled and the rebels crushed. Events do not delay,
in fact, to verify the prophecy of the monarch. Locked up, the
leaders of the revolt are condemned to death. The scene of judgment
in the last act is one of the finest in the play. On one side are
seated the sad and dull judges; on the other, the elegant public,
which, with a feeling of fear and disgust, gazes at the unfortunates
whom the King of Famine has robbed of almost all human semblance.
And in this play, also, Death reaps a bountiful harvest.

"Black Masks" is the study of a pathological case which Andreyev has
dramatized after the fashion of de Maupassant's "The Horla."

The Duke Lorenzo, young, noble, and the owner of a magnificent
palace, is getting ready to receive his guests, to whom he is
giving, on this evening, a masked ball. The masks arrive: they are
all black, and all look alike. They all crowd around Lorenzo, whom
this funereal sort of masquerade bothers extremely. He cannot find
his wife among the guests.