All the tales in the volume are the work of the “first” Gorky—the bitter one, the melodramatic, outraged Gorky. They are on a whole not as good as the collection of stories written during that same period and translated in a volume called _Orloff and His Wife_. Gorky still lives and he has learned how to write. His later tales, composed in Italy by the “second” Gorky, the consumptive, contemplative, clear-seeing Gorky, are mature, almost mellow. But they are no longer distinctive. Anyone could have written them, anyone with a bit of genius and a great deal of time on his hands. But the _Chelkash_ tales and the tales in _Orloff and His Wife_—these no one but Gorky has written, and although they are inferior in workmanship to the products of Chekhov and Andreyev the American reader will find them perhaps more interesting. Two Masters and a Petty Monster _The Little Angel, by Leonid Andreyev. New York: Alfred A. Knopf._ _Russian Silhouettes, by Anton Chekhov. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons._ _The Breaking Point, by Michael Artzibashef. New York: B. W. Huebsch._ “Charming fellows, those Russians,” said my friend. “When it comes to delineating the processes, mental and physical, of rape, suicide, incest, arson, butchery, and disease, they are without peers....” I therefore take this occasion to hurl two newly translated Russian books at my friend, hoping they land on his thick head. The first book which I hurl at my friend is Andreyev’s _The Little Angel_. It is a collection of short stories. There are fifteen stories in the new volume brought out by Mr. Alfred Knopf, and all of them are little masterpieces. There is one story about a dog, _Snapper_. Only Anatole France has equaled it. There is another story, _The Marseillaise_. It is a perfect story. It is Kipling at his very best plus a flavor, a note, a something serious and deep that the Russians alone know how to command, that Kipling never reached. There is one story, _In the Basement_. I hope my friend chokes on this story. It would serve him right. But _The Little Angel_ stands out from the fifteen. It is about a little boy, a bitter, lonely-hearted fellow whose mother drinks and beats him, whose father is dying of consumption, and who in turn snarls and bullies his playmates and weeps at night because his heart is so empty and heavy. In this story Andreyev attains a poignant delicacy of touch and a grim beauty which even his one-time contemporary Chekhov never surpassed. _The Little Angel_ is the most beautiful short story I ever have read. Chekhov has also been translated again. A collection of fragments, vibrating episodes, moods, and exquisite children stories called _Russian Silhouettes_ has been issued by Scribners’.