16 APRIL 1927, Page 17

It is ten Years since Maxim Gorki has produced a

novel, but Decadence was worth waiting for. The events in the life' of Gorki's peasants are unimportant ("- Men are bees and we are the flowers for them," says a peasant woman), but their psychology is amazingly vivid. • The theme of this book is that patience mingled with resentment can become more dangerous than a knife. It is a crude, bitterly realistic story of a certain phase of Russian existence, written by a master of words— a book not to be missed by those with leisure, and love of Russia. The present writer, however, must freely confess that he dislikes all Gorki's characters.