It was in 1885, while in exile in Yakutsk, that he wrote his famous “Makár’s Dream.” It is an odd fantasy, this story of the Yakut who, having gotten half frozen in the wood, dreams that he is dragged before the tribunal of the great Lord Toyon--a nondescript judge who is neither of heaven nor of earth. Before a great scale, whose one end is a small golden platter and whose other a huge wooden bowl, the peasant is summoned to explain the acts of his life. At length, when his cheatings and stealings are found to have outweighed all of the deeds of service and faithfulness in his life, he suddenly breaks into an unwonted eloquence of protest. He is unwilling to bear the penalty of being turned into a beast of burden by becoming the horse of a church official, not because the horse is badly treated, for it is well fed--better fed, indeed, than he, the peasant, has ever been--but he protests because the penalty is unjust. This appeal to justice seems to move the great Toyon, and he ends by saying to the dejected Makár, “Have patience, poor soul, thou art no longer on earth: here will be found justice, even for thee!” And as he speaks the scales begin to tremble, and the wooden bowl, filled with his evil deeds, rises higher and higher, as though weighed down by his good acts. Surely, the great meed of injustice suffered by The Exile himself gave inspiration for the message of mercy at the end of this fantastic tale. What may be called Korolenko’s Siberian era is further illustrated in his sketches of a Siberian tourist, nine of which cover about one hundred pages of ordinary size. All the sketches are remarkable for local color and fine understanding of character. The one unfortunate tendency is toward unfinished situation, for the sense of coming to an adequate close is inseparable from good story-telling. It is but fair to observe, however, that this trait of incompleteness is characteristic of the sketch as a fictional form. Throughout this series I have frequently asserted the obvious fact that Russian themes have largely reflected the Russian temperament, as is shown by the realistically direct and often terrible pictures which fill the pages of their literature. Altogether apart from our interest in the literate expressions of a great and alien people, we must feel a sort of gruesome fascination as we are thrilled to the point of horror in reading these simple yet titanic records of gloom. All this raises the question of what is the difference between fascination and charm--for charm, from the Anglo-American viewpoint, is almost an unknown element in Russian literature. Fascination they all possess; but charm is fascination plus delight. In Korolenko we do have a writer of charm; and, besides, a charm that is not the reflex of literatures other than his own--it evidently springs from the sweetness of a spirit which all of the bitterness of banishment could not defile. Here is a high and final test of native fineness.