The New York herald., 1922-05-07
PIERRE AND LUCE. BY Romain
ROLAND. Henry Holt & Co.

n0unced as q novel but in
reality it Is brief prose idyil set in
a bitterly tragic background. BY
way of preface it carries the follow
ing quotations:
Just as the Gulf Stream en- .
braces the Sargasso Sea. into
which gradually drift the odds
and ends that are carried away
by the marine currents into the
regions of calm, so does our aeria,
current surround region where
the air is still 1t is called The
Isle of Gains"
In all of his recent works Roman
ROLAND has been searching through
this much troubled work for that
Isle of Gains In the past and in
the present he has sought this lost
Atlantis. this lucid interspace Where
never creeps cloud nor moves
wind. Nor ever falls the least white
star of snow" In the early years
of the great war he sought it In
Above the Conflict" Later he
sought IL in the early seventeenth
century in "CoIas Breugnon." The
story of that full blooded Burgun-
dian was evidently an attempt on
Rolland's part to escape from the
constraints and the perplexities OF
modern life. But his attempt to find
delight OF living in that far of time
and in the person of that robus.
and robustious artist reminded one
OF a. dyspeptic watching hungrily
others at a banquet Of which he
himself could not partake. He was
trying to goad himself into impos-
for happiness.
In seeking this peace ROLAND has
lost his own and has become to some
the most pathetic and to others the
most tragic figure in the literary
life OF our times. This disappointed
grail hunter. who Is not yet willing
to admi. his own disilIusionment. is
pursuing his quest further in Pierre
and Luce" The younger Dumas had
called first love les Iilds de Ia tie (the
lEacs of Hfe), and it is to these that
. ROLAND has now turned to find that
consolation which, alas, seems
hencefor.h destined forever to elude
him.
OF story there is almost none: in
trigue is entirely lacking. and OF
characters there are in reality but
two. Peirre, a young lad OF IS. in
. January of 1918 has still six months
respite before his class is called to
the colors Like ROLAND, he Is sick
OF war. He is sick also OF the
bourgeois ideals of his family, which
he sees warping his own life and the
lives of those about him. While
these colics of revolt are strongest
in him and while he is meditatins
some escape from the rat trap of
nationalism in which he finds him.
self caught, he meets a young girl in
the Metro during a bombardment by
Gothds. He clasps her hand in the
darkness. This unexpected and un-
premeditated contact with life gives
him life. Luce. whose father is dead
and whose mother is working in the
munition factories, gets of at the
next station. Pierre rides on. But
his new interest allures him and he
returns to the quarter where she had
alighted and begins a search for her.
He finds her shortly thereafter copy
ing pictures in the galleries and
painting portraits for bereaved fami-
lies from photographs OF their dead.
They come to meet daily. and there
develops in the stark and grim
last months of the war a story OF
love set in a frame of tragedy and
persecution. In this respect it is
not unlike Hug6is IdyIl of the Rue
Ascpus in LES Miserables." though
of course ROLAND is probing psy-
ehologist and realist and eschews all
=hetoric. II Is 4 sort of Paul and
virginia episode tSansplanted TO
Paris. over which war is tapping
from its condor wings invisible
xro, Tho viroinaI innocence of