The Lower Depths - a play by Maxim Gorky

The Lower Depths - a play by Maxim Gorky:
"Luka is the one bright spot in the play; technically, he serves as the contrasting figure to the rest, while his prophetic optimism makes the hopeless misery of his fellow-beings blacker. He is intensely Russian in his philosophic questioning of the meaning and ultimate purpose of all life, as well as in his inordinate desire to talk. Like Turgenev's Rudin, he is forever theorizing, and that tendency is perhaps whas has caused his failure in life."