I can’t help but feel this book was a large inspiration to Tolstoy; Stepan is a character who seems to have leaped right out of the Russian soil as well as Tolstoy’s imagination.

What really is remarkable about this book, especially sketch 4 in Bagrovo, is how Sofia, though Russian, is alien enough to allow us, 200 years later and foreigners to experience her introduction in real time. We become part of the family