Antanas Vaiciulaitis is one of the outstanding masters of prose style in Lithuanian literature. Some critics consider him "the Lithuanian Flaubert" because of his care in choosing the most elegant and accurate word and in calibrating a sentence so that it remains lucid and simple while at the same time evoking multiple nuances of meaning and emotion. Others saw in Vaiciulaitis's prose some shades of Alphonse Daudet and, perhaps more importantly, some influence of the nineteenth-century Lithuanian storyteller Motiejus Valancius, particularly in the lighthearted and witty manner of moving a story along.

A consequence of Vaiciulaitis's careful style is his generally calm and balanced view of the world. Vaiciulaitis imposes this serenity upon ordinary events in the daily lives of his peasants, small-town dwellers, priests, and other kinds of people in their humble and ordinary walks of life while knowing full well that these lives are often torn...