The Orloff Couple and Malva

llowed the trade of a jobbing upholsterer, and his mother was the daughter of a dyer. He was left an orphan when quite young, and he passed then under

verything that fell into his hands. The cook's library contained amongst other authors Nekrassoff; translations of the works of Ann Radcliff; a volume of Sovrememick, whose editor was Tchemishewsky, the translator and commentator of John Stuart Mill; Iscra, and several works in Little Russian; the lives of the saints, and works by some mystical writers; some odd volumes of Dumas, and some Freemasons' literature. This curious collection of miscellaneous writings gave young Peshkoff, now fifteen, a burning desire to obtain some degree of culture, and awoke in him the wish to write. He left the steamer, and wandered to Kazan, where he was told free instruction could be obtained. Here, in order to keep himself,

Peshkoff, being in better circumstances, was able to join a group of young intellectuals amongst whom was Federoff, who, on seeing some of Peshkoff's writings, declared the youth showed great literary talent But a settled and sedentary life did not suit him, and he never really felt himself at home among these young intellectuals; preferring his wandering life, supporting himself from day to day by unskilled manual labour, and sharing the society of tramps, day-labourers and ou

,' which appeared in an important Moscow paper, the 'Russky Viedomoski'; and a lucky chance having brought him across Korolenko, Peshkoff, who had now taken for his nom de plume the title of Gorki (the Russian for bitter), through the influence of this leading ma

"stories" are rather studies and sketches, so slight is the plot, so impressionist is the form under which he reproduces the "bits of life" with which he has come in contact He seems to succeed in the art of "viewing life as a whole, and viewing it sanely"; but his pictures are of necessity tinged with pessimism, for he is the mouthpiece of the unprivileged, the sweated, the "lapsed and lost" This vein of pessimism is, however, relieved by a spirituality, a sensitiveness to the consolations of music, of light, and cloud, and water effects, of nature's he

shoemaker, dock-labourer, or vagrant Gorki makes them live in his pages, unfolds their psychology, makes us joy with their joys and sorrow with their sorrows, and intr

Korolenko. Of late years he has been forbidden, because of political writings, to enter St Petersburg or Moscow. Three volumes of his