impressions of life, and as yet undeveloped. To have used the
searching, analytical method in painting her would have spoiled this
beautiful creation. Turgenev describes her synthetically by a few
masterly lines, which show us, however, the secrets of her spirit;
revealing what she is and also what she might have become under other
circumstances.

This character deserves more attention than we can give it here.
Turgenev, like George Meredith, is a master in painting women, and his
Natalya is the first poetical revelation of a very striking fact in
modern Russian history; the appearance of women possessing a strength
of mind more finely masculine than that of the men of their time. By
the side of weak, irresolute, though highly intellectual men we see in
his first three novels energetic, earnest, impassioned women, who take
the lead in action, whilst they are but the man's modest pupils in the
domain of ideas. Only later on, in _Fathers and Children_, does
Turgenev show us in Bazarov a man essentially masculine. But of this
interesting peculiarity of Russian intellectual life, in the years
1840 to 1860, I will speak more fully when analysing another of
Turgenev's novels in which this contrast is most conspicuous.

I will say nothing of the minor characters of the story before us:
Lezhnyov, Pigasov, Madame Lasunsky, Pandalevsky, who are all excellent
examples of what may be called miniature-painting.

As to the novel as a whole, I will make here only one observation, not
to forestall the reader's own impressions.

Turgenev is a realist in the sense that he keeps close to reality,
truth, and nature. But in the pursuit of photographic faithfulness to