word--the most conscientious and sincere artists in the whole
world--for some reason have up to this time passed over
prostitution and the brothel. Why? Really, it is difficult for me
to answer that. Perhaps because of squeamishness, perhaps out of
pusillanimity, out of fear of being signalized as a pornographic
writer; finally from the apprehension that our gossiping criticism
will identify the artistic work of the writer with his personal
life and will start rummaging in his dirty linen. Or perhaps they
can find neither the time, nor the self-denial, nor the self-
possession to plunge in head first into this life and to watch it
right up close, without prejudice, without sonorous phrases,
without a sheepish pity, in all its monstrous simplicity and
everyday activity... That material... is truly unencompassable in
its significance and weightiness... The words of others do not
suffice--even though they be the most exact--even observations,
made with a little note-book and a bit of pencil, do not suffice.
One must grow accustomed to this life, without being cunningly
wise..."

"I believe, that not now, not soon--after fifty years or so--but
there will come a writer of genius, and precisely a Russian one,
who will absorb within himself all the burdens and all the
abominations of this life and will cast them forth to us in the
form of simple, fine, and deathlessly--caustic images. And we
shall all say: 'Why, now, we ourselves have seen and known all
this, but we could not even suppose that this is so horrible! In
this coming artist I believe with all my heart."

Kuprin is too sincere, too big, to have written this with himself
in mind; yet no reader of the scathing, searing arraignment called