INTRODUCTION
FEDOR SOLOGUB is one of the cleverest of contemporary Russian tale-writers and poets. He ranks with Tchekhof and Kuprin and Remizof, though he has very little in common with these writers. He is not a realist; he does not love to comment on life as Tchekhof did, nor to flood his pages with delicious details as does Kuprin; he has nothing of either the melancholy or the energy of Gorky. He is more modern than these; he scents new thoughts, and endeavours to find a new medium of style and language to present them to his age. His genius lies in the power he has to suggest atmosphere. He can cast the reader into a spell and then say magical sentences in his ears—it may be a sweet spell as in "Turandina" or a terrible one as in "The Herald
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