Books: On the Run

THE SEVEN WHO FLED—Frederic Prokosch—Harper ($2.50).

Listen. There is only one victory possible for a man—that of having lost with a certain dignity of heart, at least, and nobility of spirit. That is all, that is all, and it will always be all!

When a huge, innocent-eyed, pockmarked Russian exile named Serafimov came out alive after his flight across China, those words expressed all that he had distilled out of his experience. Expelled with six other Europeans by the Bolsheviks from "the very middle of Asia," later held in custody in Aqsu. Serafimov had spent...