Lazare, on the other hand, is one of those wretched beings whose number seems to be constantly increasing in our midst, the product of our corrupt civilisation, our gro tesque educational systems, our restlessness and thirst for wealth, our thousand vices and our blatant hypocrisy. At the same time he is a talented young fellow, as are so many of the wretched décadents of nowadays; and 'something more or something less in his brain might have turned his talent into genius. In this respect, indeed, he suggests another of M. Zola's characters, Claude Lantier, the painter of l'ceuvre but he is far weaker than was Claude, whose insanity sprang from his passion for his art, whereas Lazare's mental disorder is the fruit of that lack, both of will-power and of the spirit of perseverance, which always becomes mani fest in decaying races. Brie?y, he is a type of the talented, versatile, erratic weakling — a variety of what Paris expres sively calls the awi/viste, who loomed so largely through the final years of the last century, and who by force of numbers, not of power, threatens to dominate the century which has just begun.