Turgenev was committed to instilling his fiction with a social message, but his works do not present black-and-white conflicts or characters instead they illuminate the complexities of human nature. His novels chronicle the Russian intelligentsia during the middle decades of the nineteenth century, capturing with great subtlety the complex tensions that arose between generations and classes in a repressive, feudalistic empire. Although today his lyrical fiction stands in the shadow of the monumental works of his two great contemporaries, Turgenev was a literary innovator and the first Russian author to be widely read and admired in Europe and America. Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) ranks with Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky as one of the greatest Russian novelists of the nineteenth century. In the words of the great French novelist Gustave Flaubert, The Torrents of Spring puts love into your heart: you smile and feel like crying. This morally complex tale about the destructive power of passion is considered by many to be Turgenev’s greatest love story. Sanin proves to be a weak man who is swept up by carnal desire like a leaf in a rushing stream. But romance takes a turn toward heartbreak when Sanin falls under the spell of Maria Nikolaevna Polozov, an imperious beauty who pays no heed to consequences in her pursuit of pleasure. They seem destined for each other: Sanin saves the life of Gemma’s brother, defends her honor in a duel, and inevitably they fall in love.

While traveling through Germany, Dmitri Sanin, a young Russian nobleman, meets Gemma Roselli, a beautiful Italian girl who works in her family’s shop in Frankfurt. THE TORRENTS OF SPRING BY IVAN TURGENEV IS A BITTERSWEET story of young love steered astray by passion. Printed and bound in the United States of America Otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or Stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any No part of this publication may be reproduced,

The smiling lieutenant torrent