Today, just as a hundred years ago, readers derive an inimitable delight from Turgenev’s novels, and this delight is mingled with amazement at the sensibility and trenchancy with which the author responds to the most vital problems of his day. Another amazing thing is Turgenev’s ability to raise his readers to a higher moral plane, so to speak, an ability remarked upon by another great Russian writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin: “What can I say about Turgenev’s novels as a writer? That after reading them one breathes more easily, believes more readily, and feels more warmly. That one distinctly feels one’s moral standards rising, that one blesses and loves the author.’’