FICTION: Knouts of Silence

MITYA'S LOVE—Ivan Bunin—Holt ($2). To one who can feel the horror of talking into empty rooms, of screaming into unechoing abysses, of writing to no response, of being knouted by silences—to such a one this story of Mitya's adolescent love for unanswering Katya tolls familiarly. Mitya did love the young, amorous girl. When she put her little hand on his arm and looked up at him, he was very happy and not a little proud, and "strode along, like a country boy, so fast that she could hardly keep up with him." There...