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Vsevolod Michailovich Garshin, the "melancholiac," as he is sometimes called, was of good family. He was born in February, 1855. In appearance of a Southern type, he was nice-looking, and possessed a sweetness of disposition and a temperament sympathetic to a degree unusual in a man. His early life was spent on the family estate with his parents, his father having retired from the army in 1858. Wh... More

Vsevolod Michailovich Garshin, the "melancholiac," as he is sometimes called, was of good family. He was born in February, 1855. In appearance of a Southern type, he was nice-looking, and possessed a sweetness of disposition and a temperament sympathetic to a degree unusual in a man. His early life was spent on the family estate with his parents, his father having retired from the army in 1858. When nine years old, he was placed at school in St. Petersburg. His original intention of becoming a doctor was frustrated by the issue at that time of a Government regulation making a University course obligatory on all wishing to take up medicine. He early showed an abnormal nervousness, and in 1872, when only seventeen years old, was temporarily placed under restraint. Recovering his sanity in 1873, and having completed his school course, he entered the Institute of Mining Engineers in 1874. In 1876 the Russo-Turkish War broke out. Although the horrors of war affected him very deeply, Garshin considered it his bounden duty to take an active share in the campaign, and enlisted as a private in an infantry regiment of the line. He displayed great gallantry in action, was wounded in the leg, and invalided home. From this time his mind became periodically unhinged, and it was immediately preceding one of these attacks that he wrote "A Night," which bears unmistakable evidence of a disordered brain. Finally, in 1887, in an access of physical and mental agony, he succeeded in eluding those who were watching by his bedside, and threw himself down a flight of stone steps which formed the staircase leading to his apartment. He inflicted grave injuries to himself, and added to his mental trouble by brooding over the state of mind which had led him to commit such an act. He was shortly afterwards transferred to a hospital for better treatment, where he expired in April, 1888, at the early age of thirty-three, in the presence of some of his always numerous friends and a devoted wife.

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