Excerpt from The Brigadier and Other Stories IN the interval of ten years which elapsed be tween Smoke and Virgin Soil, the critics, generally speaking, bore themselves coldly to ward Turgeniefi's productions, and the public did the same. Sometimes his sketches of various lengths were condemned, and he was accused of having deteriorated; sometimes they were praised, but without any special enthusiasm, and more as a matter of habit, more on account of the former services of the favourite author. In the criticism of that period there may be detected an attempt at diligent and thoughtful elucidation of the gen eral inward meaning of the studies which the au thor published year by year. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.