husband. Varvara is frivolous, Irina is cold-hearted, and Maria is a
super-woman; she makes a bet with her husband that she can seduce any
man he brings to the house. To each of her lovers she gives an iron
ring, symbol of their slavery; and like Circe, she transforms men into
swine. After she has hypnotised Sanin, and taken away his allegiance
to the pure girl whom he loves, "her eyes, wide and clear, almost
white, expressed nothing but the ruthlessness and glutted joy of
conquest. The hawk, as it clutches a captured bird, has eyes like
that." Turgenev, whose ideal woman is all gentleness, modesty, and
calmness, must have seen many thoroughly corrupt ones, to have been so
deeply impressed with a woman's capacity for evil. In "Virgin Soil,"
when he introduces Mashurina to the reader, he says: "She was a single
woman . . . and a very chaste single woman. Nothing wonderful in that,
some sceptic will say, remembering what has been said of her exterior.
Something wonderful and rare, let us be permitted to say." It is
significant that in not one of Turgenev's seven novels is the villain
of the story a man. Women simply must play the leading role in his
books, for to them he has given the power of will; they lead men
upward, or they drag them downward, but they are always in front.

The virtuous heroine of "Torrents of Spring," Gemma, is unlike any
other girl that Turgenev has created. In fact, all of his good women
are individualised--the closest similarity is perhaps seen in Lisa and
Tanya, but even there the image of each girl is absolutely distinct in
the reader's mind. But Gemma falls into no group, nor is there any
other woman in Turgenev with whom one instinctively classifies or
compares her. Perhaps this is because she is Italian. It is a long
time before the reader can make up his mind whether he likes her or
not--a rare thing in Turgenev, for most of his good women capture us
in five minutes. Indeed, one does not know for some chapters whether