“In Turgenev, first of all, I wanted to capture the unique features of the writer’s soul. He was perhaps the only Russian person in whom you (especially if you yourself are a writer) always saw a European artist, living by the well-known ideals of a thinker and observer, and not a Russian who was in the service, or busy with business, or busy with one thing or another class, economic and secular interests. How many talented writers are there, whom many educated people in society knew not as novelists, playwrights, poets, but in completely different capacities..."