Not less well known than Chirikov, is Ossip Dymov. He forsook the "Imperial Institute of Foresters" in order to devote himself to literature. He has written numerous stories, among which "Vlass" is the most captivating. It is the 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.