man finds himself confronted is definitely set forth in the figure of
_Someone in Gray_ in "The Life of Man."

The riddle, the indifference--these are the two characteristics of
human destiny that loom large in Andreyev's conception of it as set
forth in that figure. _Someone in Gray_--who is he? No one knows. No
definite name can be given him, for no one knows. He is mysterious
in "The Life of Man," where he is _Man's_ constant companion; he is
mysterious in "Anathema," where he guards the gate leading from
this finite world to eternity. And as _Man's_ companion he looks on
indifferently, apparently unconcerned whether _Man_ meets with good or
bad fortune. _Man's_ prayers do not move him. _Man's_ curses leave him
calm.

It is Andreyev's gloomy philosophy, no doubt, that so often causes
him to make his heroes lonely, so that loneliness is developed into
a principle of human existence, in some cases, as in "The City,"
becoming the dominant influence over a man's life. Particularly the
men whom life has treated senselessly and cruelly, whom it has dealt
blow after blow until their spirits are crushed out--it is such men in
particular who become lonely, seek isolation and retirement, and slink
away into some hole to die alone. This is the significance of the
saloon scene in "The Life of Man." The environment of the drunkards
who are withdrawn from life, and therefore lonely themselves,
accentuates the loneliness of _Man_ in the last scene. It is his
loneliness that Andreyev desired to bring into relief. His frequenting
the saloon is but an immaterial detail, one of the means of
emphasizing this idea. To remove all possible misunderstanding on this
point, Andreyev wrote a variant of the last scene, "The Death of Man,"
in which, instead of dying in a saloon surrounded by drunkards, _Man_