Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/11



story which follows is an analytical tragedy, and its hero, despite other differences, is related to the types given us by Dostoyeffski in Crime and Punishment, and by Bourget in The Disciple. These intellectual heroes, products of the Nineteenth Century, are bound to be with us during the period of our unrest. It is the story of the fanaticism of Reason; yet Reason per se is the soberest of things.

Dr. Kerzhentseff, the victim of the Dilemma, is a type of "Superman." Can it be that Zarathustra had dreamt of him in that dream in which he saw his face distorted in a mirror held up by a child? A too great consciousness of the power of his thought is at the bottom of the tragedy. He wished to make his mentality serve as a bridge