ile "Anathema" is an abstract character, whose form resembles more
an algebraic formula than a living process of human relations,
another of Andreyev's plays, "The Love of the Student," written a
short time before "Anathema," gives us a little picture of customs,
alert and painted with the touch of a master.

Gloukortzev, a young student, falls in love with a young girl whom
her mother forces to become a prostitute. Gloukortzev, young and
inexperienced, has not the slightest suspicion, till the young girl
herself reveals to him the horrible truth. And, perhaps for the
first time in his life, the gulf of necessity, toward which fate
drives men, opens before him. He sees with horror that he cannot
come to the rescue of the girl he loves, because he is poor himself.
He cannot even buy her some food, when she tells him that she has
eaten nothing since the night before. Placed before the absolute
bare reality of life, Gloukortzev does not know what to do, and his
comrades, good and upright fellows like himself, have not the means
to help him.

Several very successful scenes, in which the author blends the
tragic with the comic, deserve, in this brief analysis, special
attention. In the first act, there is a students' picnic at which
Olga and Gloukortzev, still full of happiness, are present. The
spectator is drawn by personal sympathy to the student Onoufry, a
good fellow, always drunk, who makes fun of others and himself. We
see him again in the second act, when Gloukortzev finds out about
Olga's life. The poignant scene between the poor girl and her lover
is heightened and softened by the arrival of the students, to whom
Gloukortzev tells his sorrow. The last two acts take place in Olga's
home. The mother brings her daughter a rich "client." And, in the
next room, Gloukortzev suffers terribly, because he knows that his
beloved is still leading an infamous life. In the same room, in the
fourth act, we are present at an orgy, during which the student
quarrels with an officer who has come to spend the night with Olga.
But Onoufry, interfering in time, prevents an affray the issue of
which would probably have been fatal. When the curtain falls,
Gloukortzev, intoxicated, is weeping; at his side is Olga, also
weeping, while Onoufry and the officer are singing: "The days of our
lives are as short as the life of a wave."

This drama, as well as most of Andreyev's plays, has been produced
with great success in Russia and also i