The play opens with a scene between Anathema, the incarnation of Satan, and "He who guards the gates," behind which is the mystery of eternity. Anathema entreats the Guardian to give him access. But it is in vain that Anathema flatters and insults him; finally, Anathema declares that he will choose from among mankind a poor Jew, named David Leiser, will enrich him and, in order to prove the absolute nonsense of life, will make this man a living protestation against the work of Him who knows all. Disguised as the lawyer Nullius, Anathema comes down to earth and gives millions to David. The latter, the best of men, distributes his riches among the poor. But the beggars become more and more numerous, and soon David finds that he is as poor as he was before the visit of Anathema.
In the meantime, the crowd of paupers, always increasing, ask more money from David; they demand miracles from this man, whose goodness has made him a saint, a superman, in their eyes. They bring him corpses and ask him to resuscitate them. David flees; the crowd follows and stones him to death. But, through his love for his fellow-men, David has acquired immortality, as "He who guards the gates" tells Anathema, when, in the last act, the evil archangel, beaten, returns to lie on the threshold of the inconceivable mysterious.
This admirable play, born of a philosophical conception which relates it to Goethe's "Faust," has been received with particular interest. Andreyev, in writing it, has come very near to solving the question of the meaning of life, and its justification. And, to the person who ponders a while over this work, it will appear that it is not Anathema who entreats "Him who guards the gates" to reveal the mystery, but it is Andreyev himself, who, carried away by the force of his genius, has thrown himself, as if at an invincible wall, against this pitiless guardian, the guardian of the solution of the enigma of life.
While "Anathema" is an abstract character, whose form resembles more an algebraic formula than a living process of human relations, another of Andreyev's plays, "The Love of the Student," written a short time before "Anathema," gives us a little picture of customs, alert and painted with the touch of a master.
Gloukortzev, a young student, falls in love with a young girl whom her mother forces to become a prostitute. Gloukortzev, young and inexperienced, has not the slightest suspicion, till the young girl herself reveals to him the horrible truth. And, perhaps for the first time in his life, the gulf of necessity, toward which fate drives men, opens before him. He sees with horror that he cannot come to the rescue of the girl he loves, because he is poor himself. He cannot even buy her some food, when she tells him that she has eaten nothing since the night before. Placed before the absolute bare reality of life, Gloukortzev does not know what to do, and his comrades, good and upright fellows like himself, have not the means to help him.
Several very successful scenes, in which the author blends the tragic with the comic, deserve, in this brief analysis, special attention. In the first act, there is a students' picnic at which Olga and Gloukortzev, still full of happiness, are present. The spectator is drawn by personal sympathy to the student Onoufry, a good fellow, always drunk, who makes fun of others and himself. We see him again in the second act, when Gloukortzev finds out about Olga's life. The poignant scene between the poor girl and her lover is heightened and softened by the arrival of the students, to whom Gloukortzev tells his sorrow. The last two acts take place in Olga's home. The mother brings her daughter a rich "client." And, in the next room, Gloukortzev suffers terribly, because he knows that his beloved is still leading an infamous life. In the same room, in the fourth act, we are present at an orgy, during which the student quarrels with an officer who has come to spend the night with Olga. But Onoufry, interfering in time, prevents an affray the issue of which would probably have been fatal. When the curtain falls, Gloukortzev, intoxicated, is weeping; at his side is Olga, also weeping, while Onoufry and the officer are singing: "The days of our lives are as short as the life of a wave."
This drama, as well as most of Andreyev's plays, has been produced with great success in Russia and also in Europe.