reader _On the Eve_ is a charmingly drawn picture of a quiet Russian
household, with a delicate analysis of a young girl's soul; but to
Russians it is also a deep and penetrating diagnosis of the destinies
of the Russia of the fifties. 

Elena, the Russian girl, is the central figure of the novel.  In
comparing her with Turgenev's other women, the reader will remark that
he is allowed to come into closer spiritual contact with her than even
with Lisa.  The successful portraits of women drawn by men in fiction
are generally figures for the imagination to play on; however much
that is told to one about them, the secret springs of their character
are left a little obscure, but when Elena stands before us we know all
the innermost secrets of her character.  Her strength of will, her
serious, courageous, proud soul, her capacity for passion, all the
play of her delicate idealistic nature troubled by the contradictions,
aspirations, and unhappiness that the dawn of love brings to her, all
this is conveyed to us by the simplest and the most consummate art.
The diary (chapter xvi.) that Elena keeps is in itself a masterly
revelation of a young girl's heart; it has never been equalled by any
other novelist.  How exquisitely Turgenev reveals his characters may be