The Little Angel

PREFACE

Leonid Nikolaivich Andreyev was born in Orel in 1871. After his father’sdeath he was thrown upon his own resources, but managed to study at bothPetrograd and Moscow Universities, graduating in Law in 1897. During thisperiod he endured great hardship—often even actual hunger—and wasthe victim of deep melancholia. His first writings were unsuccessful; and, fora time, he devoted himself to painting. Later he came into touch with theRussian press as police-court reporter for a leading newspaper.

Then “Silence” was published, and brought him immediaterecognition. This terrible story may serve as an example of his method. Thesilence of the frightened girl, dying with her secret, and of her mother,stricken, through shock, with paralysis, crushes the pride of the priest whosetraining has so stiffened his nature that he cannot express or welcomeaffection. He cries for help; he entreats them to show him pity. His daughterlies dead; his wife motionless. An abstract idea is the germ of each tale;around it are woven both characters and incident—a process which is inmarked contrast to the work of his contemporary Maxim Gorky whose people withtheir actions come directly from life—mostly, indeed, from his ownpersonal experiences. Sometimes the double note is tragic; oftener, theabstract idea redeems the gloom or horror of the actual tale, as in “TheLittle Angel” and “In the Basement,” for, while the storiesof Andreyev are tinged with more than even the ordinary tone of sadness of theRussian writer, there seems to be in his mind a balancing, a search for somekind of compensation, as though he would say, “No man is wholly good orwholly bad.” Perhaps it is the weakness of a method by which hischaracters become the puppets—however real—illustrating an idea;perhaps it is the strength of the author’s vision,

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