Nevertheless, when one has said his worst, and particularly when
he has eliminated the dingier stories of the collection, he
returns with an admiration, almost passionate, to the truth, the
variety, above all to the freedom of these stories. I do not know
Russia or the Russians, and yet I am as sure of the absolute truth
of that unfortunate doctor in "La Cigale," who builds up his
heroic life of self-sacrifice while his wife seeks selfishly
elsewhere for a hero, as I am convinced of the essential
unreality, except in dialect and manners, of the detectives, the
"dope-fiends," the hard business men, the heroic boys and lovely
girls that people most American short stories. As for variety,--
the Russian does not handle numerous themes. He is obsessed with
the dreariness of life, and his obsession is only occasionally
lifted; he has no room to wander widely through human nature. And
yet his work gives an impression of variety that the American
magazine never attains. He is free to be various. When the mood of
gloom is off him, he experiments at will, and often with
consummate success. He seems to be sublimely unconscious that
readers are supposed to like only a few kinds of stories; and as
unaware of the taboo upon religious or reflective narrative as of
the prohibition upon the ugly in fiction.
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