In fact, he does not recognize any of
them until, to cap the climax, he meets his double, fights with him
and dies, without being able to discern who is the real Lorenzo.

* * * * *

At times, Andreyev tries to find the justification of life, and
looks for it in mysticism. He then expounds a doctrine, according to
which, truth is individual and perhaps conceived by each man,
thanks to direct intuition. Such is the mystical truth which the
author tries to affirm in "Anathema."

The play opens with a scene between Anathema, the incarnation of
Satan, and "He who guards the gates," behind which is the mystery of
eternity. Anathema entreats the Guardian to give him access. But it
is in vain that Anathema flatters and insults him; finally, Anathema
declares that he will choose from among mankind a poor Jew, named
David Leiser, will enrich him and, in order to prove the absolute
nonsense of life, will make this man a living protestation against
the work of Him who knows all. Disguised as the lawyer Nullius,
Anathema comes down to earth and gives millions to David. The
latter, the best of men, distributes his riches among the poor. But
the beggars become more and more numerous, and soon David finds that
he is as poor as he was before the visit of Anathema.

In the meantime, the crowd of paupers, always increasing, ask more
money from David; they demand miracles from this man, whose goodness
has made him a saint, a superman, in their eyes. They bring him
corpses and ask him to resuscitate them. David flees; the crowd
follows and stones him to death. But, through his love for his
fellow-men, David has acquired immortality, as "He who guards the
gates" tells Anathema, when, in the last act, the evil archangel,
beaten, returns to lie on the threshold of the inconceivable
mysterious.

This admirable play, born of a philosophical conception which
relates it to Goethe's "Faust," has been received with particular
interest. Andreyev, in writing it, has come very near to solving the
question of the meaning of life, and its justification. And, to the
person who ponders a while over this work, it will appear that it is
not Anathema who entreats "Him who guards the gates" to reveal the
mystery, but it is Andreyev himself, who, carried away by the force
of his genius, has thrown himself, as if at an invincible wall,
against this pitiless guardian, the guardian of the solution of the
enigma of life.

Wh