When the King Loses his Head
AND OTHER STORIES
by Leonid Andreyev
TRANSLATED BY
ARCHIBALD J. WOLFE
NEW YORK
INTERNATIONAL BOOK PUBLISHING COMPANY
1920
Contents
| Preface |
| When the King Loses his Head |
| Judas Iscariot |
| Lazarus |
| Life of Father Vassily |
| Ben-Tobith |
| The Marseillaise |
| Dies Irae |
Preface.
Leonid Andreyev was born in Orel, the capital of the Russian province of thesame name, on August 21, 1871. He was ten years younger than his future patronand friend Maxim Gorki. He died on September 12, 1919, in Finland, an exilefrom his beloved chaos-ridden fatherland.
His father, a Russian of pure blood, by profession a surveyor, was a man ofextraordinary physical vigor. He died at the early age of 42 as the result of abrain-stroke. His mother, a woman of much refinement and culture, was of Polishancestry.
The earliest years of Andreyev’s life were spent in close affiliationwith the stage, through the personal acquaintance of his parents with theleading stage folks of the province.
He was a poor scholar and loved to play “hookey,” preferring thegreat outdoors to the crowded class-room. His marks were very poor as theresult. But he was a voracious reader of literature. His latter years in highschool (gymnasium) were influenced by Tolstoy’s works on non-resistance,by Schopenhauer, and by the first works of Maxim Gorki. The death of his fatherand the seeds of the pessimistic philosophy gave the inner life of the buddingnovelist a morose and pessimistic direction. In his teens Leonid Andreyev madethree unsuccessful attempts at suicide.
It has been the fate of Leonid Andreyev to live through four distinct phases ofRussian history, each of which has contributed to the shaping of his art.
In the latter eighties and the early nineties he had passed through one of themost disheartening periods in the life of the Russian people, when under thecrushing heel of the despotic Tsar Alexander III all initiative and allaspirations of the mind were ruthlessly stifled. It was the period of shamefuland soulless years, with miserable people, relentless persecutors, obedientslaves and a few hunted rebels.
The horror of this era of nightmare weighed heavily on the sensitive soul ofyoung Andreyev and he attempted suicide in 1894 by shooting himself near theheart. The attempt was unsuccessful, but left behind an affliction of theheart, of which he died twenty-five years later.
In his student years (Andreyev took up the study of law in the University ofMoscow) he fell under the influence of Tchekhov and of Gorki. Andreyev did notin his earlier years dream of becoming a writer. His interest in art led him topainting and his pictures were exhibited in the independent salons and muchpraised. His early stories were printed in the newspapers of Moscow under thenom-de-plume of James Lynch.
Andreyev’s first story printed under that nom-de-plume in 1898 arousedthe in