TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN : THE STORY OF V.
I. SEROFF By M. R. Werner
This biography-autobiography To Whom It May Concern : The Story of V. I. Seroff, by M. R. Werner .(Cape, 10s. Od.), is uneven ; at its best excellent, at its worst rather worse than the worst of Montparnasse. Victor Seroff is the son of a Russian settled at Batum, in the Caucasus. His childhood has the picturesqueness of the Caucasus, and the oddities inseparable from Russians. anywhere. His-school was in close relations with the neighbouring prison, and kept in control by a Cossack of terrifying appearance. Ferocious banditry was com- mon (though in this connexion, as in others, it is by no means clear how much M. Seroff has seen himself, and how much he is telling at second-hand). When the Bolsheviks came M. Seroff was studying at Tiflis. Making his way back to Datum, he escaped thence in the last American oil tanker to leave the port, and reached Constantinople. In Con- stantinople he lived in a brothel, and supported himself by attending to mules, or by acting as interpreter to the British Military Police. So far the tale is good. It is enlivened by picaresque rogues, and told with that Russian largeness of soul which may spring from deep humanity or complete moral insensibility. Thereafter it sinks into rather trivial amorous adventures in Vienna ; the lower depths of Russian émigré society in Paris ; and the less pleasing aspects of Montparnasse. The last chapter is in welcome contrast a very sympathetic account of the last days of Isadont Duncan.
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