childhood of Vlass told by himself.
An observing little person, the child notices everything and
everybody around him. His father had killed himself before the child
was old enough to talk, and his mother, a very intelligent and stern
woman, alone had to care for four children. Vlass has an older
brother, Yuri, a sister, Olya, and a younger brother, Vladimir, a
kind and inoffensive creature. Life runs along smoothly in the
little country town. The days pass, one like the other, and the most
insignificant event takes on grave importance in this monotonous
life. One night, Vlass's young teacher is arrested and sent to
Siberia. A year later, a friend of the family, who has been in exile
a long time, comes back secretly and passes several days at the
house. Later on, it is "the beautiful, good aunt" who comes
unexpectedly; but she soon departs, leaving a mass of confused and
restless thoughts in the child's mind. Vlass ends his story with a
most pathetic account. Far away from the little town, in one of the
prisons of St. Petersburg, they are going to hang Yuri. The entire
family has broken down since they have heard the news, and they sit
up the night before the execution, trying, in thought, to alleviate
the torment of their cherished one.

In his other stories, the author paints nature in an original and
entirely personal manner. According to a Russian critic, the works
of Dymov breathe forth "the fresh breeze and the quickening aroma of
the forests."

Dymov has also written some very well-liked plays, of which "Niyu"
is the most original. Niyu, a young woman, abandons her husband and
child in order to follow a poet, whose beautiful language and
touching poetry have won her admiration and brought her under his
spell. She hopes that her lover will create a new world, a higher
and nobler world than the every-day one, because he is a poet, that
is to say, one of the elect. The abandoned husband and the
uncared-for child desperately call out for their wife and mother. In
vain! However, the days that she passes with the poet are filled
with disenchantment, disillusion, and bitterness. Despairing, she
writes a letter to her old parents who live in a distant town, and
then commits suicide. And hardly is Niyu buried, when the poet,
although sadly affected by the premature loss of his companion,
again begins to charm and entrance by his beautiful words other
women, whose lives he ruins.

"Niyu" has had a tremendous success,