From this point on, Garshin’s career may plainly be read in his writings. He wrote only about twenty-five stories in all, and practically without exception they are autobiographical. The two great dominant motifs grew out of his two great life-experiences: war--but war from a special viewpoint--and what I may call the border consciousness, experiences of the mind when its poise is either uncertain or completely upset. I have said that Garshin viewed war in an unusual way. This is true not alone of his fiction but of his life. In 1876 the Russo-Turkish war broke out, and Garshin considered it his sacred duty to go. The horrors of war had always deeply affected his sensitive nature. The intoxicating blare, the thrill of glory, the call of the spectacle, all meant nothing to him, except revulsion. But duty was a word of serious meaning, and it won from him a serious response. This pupil of Tolstoi could detest and denounce an institution to whose claims he felt bound to bow in time of national need. It is always interesting to observe how two artists, especially contemporary artists, interpret the same theme. Guy de Maupassant, incomparably the greater literator, but destined to the same sad end as met Garshin, has worked out a motive in “A Coward” similar to the Russian author’s “Coward,” though the stories themselves could not be more dissimilar. Maupassant simply unclothes a human soul face to face with the idea of suicide. Relentlessly he strips shred after shred of illusion from the introspective thinker who is meditating upon his own cowardice. But when the end does come the reader is half in doubt as to how to judge the wretch. Garshin’s impressionistic sketch is tremendously cumulative. In soliloquy the Person of the story weighs the war, its appeals, its repulsions, the motives that lead men to go, the awful casualties, and finally tells how that he is considered a coward for his inaction. Am I a coward or not? To-day I was told that I am a coward. Certainly it was a very shallow-minded person who said so when I declared in her presence my unwillingness to go to the war, and expressed a fear that they will call me up to serve. Her opinion did not distress me, but raised the question, Am I really a coward? Perhaps all my aversion against what every one else considers a great matter arises only from fear of my skin! Is it really worth while to worry about any one unimportant life in view of a great matter? And am I capable of subjecting my life to danger generally for the sake of any matter? At length--just as it was with Garshin, who joined a regiment at Kishinev-of-terrible-memory--the “coward” goes to war, and after a story-within-a-story is told, his act of heroism closes the picture. * * * * *