These facts, on Russian authority, make one accept the essential truth of Andreev’s terrible revelations of depraved student life in his recent play, “The Days of Our Life.” If only this black realism be accepted as the prophet’s warning, its revolting character will be not without justification. It is, however, a paradoxical seer who can in his play, “Black Masks,” ridicule the spiritual struggle between darkness and light, and yet write to an admirer that he finds in the Bible the greatest teacher of all. Four of Andreev’s longer stories deserve more than mere mention. “A Dilemma”--sometimes called “Thought,” which conforms to the Russian title, _Mysl_ (1902)--is a long short-story. It is a remarkable psychological study of Kerzhentsev, a physician, who hovers between sanity and madness. In spite of his superb endowments of body and mind, he becomes obsessed with the desire to murder his best friend, Alexis Savelov, merely because Savelov had married the woman whom the physician desired. This murder he determines to commit under two conditions--the murder shall be known to the victim’s wife, yet the perpetrator must escape punishment. One night, while dining with the Savelovs, the doctor feigns a sort of mad fit, but for a whole month craftily does not renew the pretense. At length Kerzhentsev propounds his problem to his intended victim in a veiled way, and the victim argues that with a heavy metal paper-weight one might crush a man’s head, and bids the doctor go through such an action in dumb show. But the wife protests against such risks, for she has had a presentiment of evil. Soon after this the doctor actually does crush the head of Savelov, and in the confusion slips away to his home. Just as he is falling asleep, delighted with the success of his plan, a thought languidly enters his brain, as though a voice issued from another: _It is very possible that Dr. Kerzhentsev is really insane. He thought that he simulated, but he is really insane--insane at this very instant._ Thus begins the terrible dilemma, “for he is fighting against himself for his own reason.” At length to save himself from the madhouse he confesses to the judges that he is not mad, but a criminal deserving of punishment.