different schools of thought but equally opposed to Europe--a "Scythian" or an "Eurasian" conception. To Pilniak the Revolution is essentially the "Revolt" of peasant and rural Russia against the alien network of European civilisation, the Revolt of the "crossways" against the highroad and the railroad, of the village against the town. A conception, you will perceive, which is opposed to that of Lenin and the orthodox Communists, and which explains why official Bolshevism is not over-enthusiastic about Pilniak. The _Crossways_ is a good piece of work (it can hardly be called a story) and it just gives a glimpse of that ambitious vastness of scale on which Pilniak was soon to plan his bigger Soviet stories. * * * * * * * But taken in themselves and apart from his later work I think the stories in the manner of Bunin will be found the most satisfactory items in this volume. Of these _Death_ was written before the Revolution and, but for an entirely irrelevant and very Pilniakish allusion to Lermontov and other deceased worthies, it is entirely unconnected with events and revolutions. Very "imperfective" and hardly a "story," it is nevertheless done with sober and conscientious craftsmanship, very much like Bunin and very unlike the usual idea we have of Pilniak. The only thing Pilniak was incapable of taking from his model was Bunin's wonderfully rich and full Russian, a shortcoming which is least likely to be felt in translation. * * * * * * * The other two Buninesque stories, _The Belokonsky Estate_ and _The Heirs_, are stories (again, can the word "story" be applied to this rampantly "imperfective" style?) of the Revolution. They display the same qualities of sober measure and solid texture which are not usually associated with the name of Pilniak. These two stories ought to be read side by side, for they are correlative. In _The Belokonsky Estate_ the representative of "the old order," Prince Constantine, is drawn to an almost heroical scale and the "new man" cuts a poor and contemptible figure by his side. In the other story the old order is represented by a studied selection of all its worst types. I do not think that the stories were meant as a deliberate contrast, they are just the outcome of the natural lack of preconceived idea which is typical of Pilniak and of his passive, receptive, plastical mind. As long as he does not go out of his way to give expression to vague and incoherent ideas, the outcome of his muddle-headed meditations on Russian History, this very shortcoming (if shortcoming it be) becomes something of a virtue, and Pilniak--an honest membrana vibrating with unbiassed indifference to every sound from the outer world. * * * * * * *