But perhaps the jewel of Turguenief's narratives is that entitled "Living Relics." In this simple story he excels himself. The novel has no plot, and is nothing more than a silver lake which reflects a beautiful soul, calm and clear as the moon; and the crippled form of Lukeria is only the pretext for the detention of such a soul in this world. Who has not sometimes entered a convent church on leaving a ball-room,--in the early morning hours of Ash-Wednesday, for instance? The ears still echo the voluptuous and stirring sounds of the military band; one is ready to drop with fatigue, dizziness, glare of lights, and the unseasonable hour. But the church is dark and empty; the nuns in the choir are chanting the psalms; above the altar flickers a dim light, by whose aid one discerns a picture or a statue, though at a distance one cannot make out details of face or figure, only an expression of vague sweetness and mysterious peace. After a moment's contemplation of it, the body forgets its weariness and the soul is rocked in tranquillity. Read some novel of the world's life, and then read "Living Relics": it is like going from the ball-room to the chapel of a convent. This faculty of putting the reader in contact with the invisible world is not the talent of Turguenief exclusively, for all the great Russian novelists possess it in some degree; but Turguenief uses it with such exquisite tact and poetic charm that he seems to look serenely upon the strange psychical phenomenon he has produced in the soul of the reader, who is roused to a state of excitement that reflects the vision evoked by the artist's words. Other instances of his power in this direction are "The Dog," "Apparitions," and "Clara Militch," a confession from beyond the tomb. The last page written by Turguenief bore the title of "Despair,"--the voice of the Russian soul whose depths he had searched for forty years, says Voguié. He was then laboring under an incurable disease, cancer of the brain, which, after causing him horrible sufferings, ended his life. But though worn-out, dying, and stupefied by doses of opium and injections of morphine, his artistic faculties died hard; and he related his dreams and hallucinations with wonderful vividness, only regretting his lack of strength to put them on paper. It is said that some of these feverish visions are preserved in his "Prose Poems," which are examples of the adaptability of Turguenief's talent to miniature, condensed, bird's-eye pictures. Like Meissonier, Turguenief saw the light upon small surfaces, enhanced rather than lessened in brilliancy. I will translate one of these prose-poems, so that the reader may see how Turguenief cuts his medallions. This one is entitled "Macha":-- "When I was living in St. Petersburg, some time ago, I was in the habit of entering into conversation with the sleigh-driver, whenever I hired one.