YAMA : THE PIT. By Alexandre Kuprin. Translated by Bernard
Gilbert Guerney. (John Hamilton. 10s. 6d.) —The Russian for a house of ill fame, a translator's note tells us, is a " house of the necessary evil." There is not an atom of doubt as to the author's motives in writing this book, and it is to be hoped that it will circulate in England as freely as in other countries. Direct propaganda, education, and international agreement are achieving much : there is good reason to believe that everywhere prostitution is on the wane. At the same time, no propaganda is as effective as a work of art which touches men's imagination as well as their Intelli- gence. Knowledge in itself is not enough—or all medical students would lead monastic lives. What is needed is some- thing to convince the decent humanity that is in every man what prostitution really means, to himself and to the prosti- tute. Here M. Kuprin's book will be invaluable. It is pitiless to the reader. Despite the frankness of its propaganda, it never loses sight for a moment of the humanity of its unhappy characters, nor attempts to hide the qualities that keep them, in their private lives, affectionate and ordinary human beings. The figures of this huge, gloomy canvas are not caricatures or monsters. They suffer from their environment: they are hysterical, high-pitched, sentimental : they come to miserable ends : but they live, and never fall to be the puppets of a treatise. M. Kuprin has lodged his genius under the Red Light, and left it free to work unprompted. The present reviewer has had to do with many young men and. boys. If he were anxious about one of them, he would give him this book. The translation is good, except for a queer, word here and there, such as " untoadingly."
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