In discussing Turgenev’s shorter fictions, we must remember that most of them were written from seventy to forty years ago, and all show that fine disregard of form which only a master may entertain without inviting failure. Here, as in his novels, character is all. Other story-tellers often make the story preëminent--Turgenev never. His favorite method is to hold up many facets of a character, letting the light--here a gleam, there a full radiance--fall on each. He is a master of monologue and of dialogue. Even the jerky pauses are eloquent. The vagueness of a mind is never asserted; it is shown indubitably. The inept man, the supernumerary of society, the man who is engrossed in self, the despairing peasant bound to the wheel, the reflective but weak-willed dreamer--speech, physical habits, and physical traits reveal them all as relentlessly as a scalpel uncovers diseased tissue. This is the wonder of Turgenev’s fictional power. He has brought suggestive description to the _n_^{th} power. No fictionist has even approached him in this respect. One further quality deserves special mention, for I have already referred to his hatred of serfdom and his scorn for the superfluous social orders it built up. It is that of nature description. Turgenev was an Englishman in his love of gunning (although in later life he disapproved of the needless slaughter of innocents). Consequently, many of his tales--particularly his notable “A Sportsman’s Sketches”--abound in fine nature passages. Here is one from “Yermolaï and the Miller’s Wife.”