In the Dark (Впотьмах, Vpot'makh) is a short novel by Alexander Kuprin originally published in Russkoye Bogatstvo magazine's June and July, 1893, issues.
[2] Traveling by night train, Zinaida Pavlovna is rescued from the unwelcome attentions of a fellow passenger by Alarin, a young engineer whom she falls in love with.
Having learned of Alarin's facing imprisonment for gambling away official funds, Zinaida offer herself to Kashperov for money, so as to repay her beloved one's debt.
The story's title is a verbal distillation of the circumstances in which the characters find themselves, a life of figurative darkness intensified by the physical twilight that pervades the work," Kuprin scholar Nicolas Luker wrote.
[2] According to Luker, "[w]hile Kuprin's first large prose work shares many flaws of "The Last Debut" - melodramatic passages, unnatural situations, and bombastic language - it demonstrates his ability to handle successfully a complex plot with its major and minor characters, varied settings, and dialogues.”[2]