From that time on Kuprin's road was mapped out. According to the dictates of his fancy he depicts thousands of the ever-changing, different aspects of life. He is equally impelled to write about petty tradesmen, actors, acrobats, and sinners in the Crimea. To the accomplishment of his task, he brings an over-minute and cruel observation. With the genius that is his he dwells on certain important, carefully selected traits of people who live intensely.
In "The Disciple," we see a young sharper on a boat on the Volga. He has the tired eyes of a precocious old man, stubby fingers, and the hands of a murderer alert to strike the fatal blow. He has just fleeced a party of travelers, and he discovers, in a savory conversation with an old cheat, who has found him out, that his soul is being consumed with insatiable desires. And as the old sharper admires the "savoir-faire" of his young friend, the latter observes, not without scorn, that they belong to two very different categories of sharpers. "Among you old fellows," he sneers, "there was romanticism. You loved beautiful women, champagne, music and the song of the tziganes.... We, however, we others are tired of everything. Fear and debauch are equally unknown to us...."
After the sharper we have the spy in "Captain Rybnikov." He passes for a Siberian, and says that he has been wounded in the Russo-Japanese war. He goes out into society a great deal, and is most commonly seen in the military offices and in the best "salons" of St. Petersburg. One night, when he is asleep at a courtesan's house, he mutters the war-cry of Japan: "Banzai! Banzai!" The courtesan denounces him to a policeman who happens to be there, and the pseudo-captain, who is no other than a colonel in the Japanese army, is arrested.
Before leaving the military world, let us analyze "The Delirium." Captain Markov has been ordered by the government to suppress the revolution in certain provinces. Disgusted with the duty of daily executioner, the officer frets himself into a high fever. A non-commissioned officer enters to ask him to decide the fate of three men who have been arrested the previous night, one of whom is an old man with a peaceful and strangely beautiful face. The sergeant knows that they ought to be shot, but these executions are so repulsive to him, that he is anxious to have the sentence of death confirmed by his chief, who seems to him to have the sole responsibility.
"I don't want you ever again to ask me such a question," cries Markov, who has guessed the intention of his subordinate. "You know what you ought to do." And he dismisses him. But the soldier remains motionless.
"What else do you want?" asks the captain.
"The men," answers the stubborn soldier, "are anxious to know what to do with the ... old ... man...."
"Get out of here!" the officer roars, exasperated. "Do you understand?"
"Very well, captain. But as to-day is December 31, allow me to offer you my best wishes for a happy New Year."