THE RIVER OF LIFE
THE RIVER OF LIFE
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
ALEXANDER KUPRIN
TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY
S. KOTELIANSKY AND J. M. MURRY
JOHN W. LUCE AND COMPANY
BOSTON
1916
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Alexander Kuprin was born in 1870. He attended the Cadet School and the Military College at Moscow, and entered the Russian Army as a lieutenant in 1890. Seven years later he resigned his commission to devote himself to literature.
He achieved fame by a novel, The Duel, in which he described with a ruthless realism the army life in a garrison town upon the Western Frontier. The book, which in reality falls into line with the rest of his work as a severely objective presentation of a life which he has found vivid and rich, was, fortunately for his success, interpreted as an indictment of the Russian Army and the ill-starred Manchurian campaign. He was accepted by the propagandists as one of themselves, and though he protested vigorously against his unsought reputation, his position was thenceforward assured.