By the descriptions of the landscape in "Yermolai and the Miller's Wife" Turgenev subtly introduces the sense into our minds of nature's vastness, of her infinity, of which the spectacle of man's social injustice and distress becomes indissolubly part. Here there is nothing of the reformer's _parti-pris_ in the picture. Turgenev's fluid, sympathetic perceptions blend into a flow of creative mood, in which the relations of men to their surroundings, and the significance of their actions, their feelings, their fate are seen as parts of the universal, dominating scheme of things. And this flow of mood in Turgenev is his creative secret: as when music flows from a distance to the listener over the darkening fields immediately the rough coarse earth, with all its grinding, petty monotony melts into harmony, and life is seen in its mysterious immensity, not merely in its puzzling discrepancy of gaps, and contradictions and confusions. Turgenev's work, at its best, gives us the sense of looking beyond the heads of the moving human figures, out to the infinite horizon. Although in Turgenev's pellucid art each touch seems simple, the whole effect is highly complex, depending upon an infinite variety of shades of tone. Let us finish by examining his complex method in "The Singers." In the first twenty lines the author etches the cheerless aspect of "the unlucky hamlet of Kolotovka, which lies on the slope of a barren hill ... yet all the surrounding inhabitants know the road to Kolotovka well; they go there often and are always glad to go." It is not merely the tavern "The Welcome Resort," but the tavern-keeper Nikolai Ivanitch that attracts them, for his shrewd alertness and geniality are an influence far and wide in the neighbourhood. Turgenev now introduces his main theme by a variation _in tempo_. He describes how the narrator on a blazing hot July day is slowly dragging his feet up the Kolotovka ravine towards the Inn, when he overhears one man calling to another to come and hear a singing competition between Yashka the Turk and the booth-keeper from Zhizdry. The narrator's curiosity is stirred, and he follows the villagers into the bar-room, where he finds the assembled company, who are urging the two singers to begin. The men toss and the lot falls on the booth-keeper. Having riveted our attention, Turgenev now increases his hold on us by sketching the life and character of three village characters, "the Gabbler," "the Blinkard" and "the Wild Master." We examine the village audience till the booth-keeper at last steps forward and sings. For a time the booth-keeper does not evoke the enthusiasm of the critical villagers, but at last they are conquered by his bold flourishes and daring trills, and they shout their applause. The booth-keeper's song is the triumph of technique and of training, and he carries away his hearers, while "the Gabbler" bawls: "You've won, brother, you've won!"