Ivan Turgenev is one of the great names of nineteenth-century realism, but here the reader will be surprised by a facet of his that is almost unknown, if not unpublished in Spanish. In the nine stories that make up this selection, the brilliant Russian author skillfully achieves the condition inherent to the fantasy genre: the characters are not only disconcerted, doubtful, wondering if what they are experiencing is actually happening, or if it is a product of a dream or imagination; they also transmit this doubt to the reader. This creates a powerful suggestion, generating the necessary ambiguity so that the reader feels that the protagonists and their world are as real as he is, so that he hesitates between faith and disbelief, between a natural or supernatural explanation of the events evoked; so that, once the story is over, the enigma remains latent and the emotion endures.