The character who plays the title-role is a typical
Russian windbag, irresolute and incapable, like so many Russian
heroes; but whether drunk or sober, he is destitute of charm. He is
both dreary and dirty. The opening chapters are written with great
spirit, and the reader is full of happy expectation. One goes farther
and fares worse. After the first hundred pages, the book is a
prolonged anti-climax, desperately dull. Altogether the best passage
in the story is the description of the river in spring, impressive not
merely for its beauty and accuracy of language, but because the Volga
is interpreted as a symbol of the spirit of the Russian people, with
vast but unawakened possibilities.
"Between them, in a magnificent sweep, flowed the broad-breasted
Volga; triumphantly, without haste, flow her waters, conscious of
their unconquerable power; the hill-shore was reflected in them like a
dark shadow, but on the left side she was adorned with gold and
emerald velvet by the sandy borders of the reefs, and the broad
meadows. Now here, now there, on the hills, and in the meadows,
appeared villages, the sun sparkled in the window-panes of the
cottages, and upon the roofs of yellow straw; the crosses of the
churches gleamed through the foliage of the trees, the gray wings of
the mills rotated lazily through the air, the smoke from the chimneys
of a factory curled skyward in thick black wreaths.
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