TURGUÉNEFF wrote, in 1848-1851, five comedies, which offer all the elements for refined acting, are very lively and, being written in a beautiful style (Turguéneff’s prose!), are still the source of æsthetic pleasure for the more refined playgoers. SUKHOVÓ-KOBÝLIN has already been mentioned. He wrote one comedy, _The Marriage of Kretchínskiy_, which made its mark and is still played with success, and a trilogy, _The Affair_, which is a powerful satire against bureaucracy, but is less effective on the stage than the former. A. PÍSEMSKIY, the novelist (1820-1881), wrote, besides a few good novels and several insignificant comedies, one remarkably good drama--_A Bitter Fate_, from the peasants’ life, which he knew well and rendered admirably. It must be said that Leo Tolstóy’s well known _Power of Darkness_--taken also from peasant life--notwithstanding all its power, has not eclipsed the drama of Písemskiy. The novelist A. A. POTYÉKHIN (1829-1902) also wrote for the stage, and must not be omitted even in such a rapid sketch of the Russian drama as this. His comedies, _Tinsel_, _A Slice Cut-off_, _A Vacant Situation_, _In Muddy Waters_, met with the greatest difficulties as regards censorship, and the third was never put on the stage; but those which were played were always a success, while the themes that he treated always attracted the attention of our critics. The first of them, _Tinsel_, can be taken as a fair representative of the talent of Potyékhin. This comedy answered a “question of the day.” For several years Russian literature, following especially in the steps of SCHEDRIN (see Ch. VIII.), delighted in the description of those functionaries of the Government boards and tribunals who lived (before the reforms of the sixties) almost entirely upon bribes. However, after the reforms had been carried through, a new race of functionaries had grown up, “those who took no bribes,” but at the same time, owing to their strait-laced official rigorism, and their despotic and unbridled egotism, were even worse specimens of mankind than any of the “bribe-takers” of old. The hero of _Tinsel_ is precisely such a man. His character, with all its secondary features--his ingratitude and especially his love (or what passes for love in him)--is perhaps too much blackened for the purposes of the drama: men so consistently egotistical and formalistic are seldom, if ever, met with in real life. But one is almost convinced by the author of the reality of the type--with so masterly a hand does he unroll in a variety of incidents the “correct” and deeply egotistic nature of his hero. In this respect the comedy is very clever, and offers full opportunity for excellent acting.