Gemma is sincere or not, and one is angry with Sanin for his moth-like
flitting about her radiance. She at once puzzles and charms the
reader, as she did the young Russian. Her family circle are sketched
with extraordinary skill, and her young brother is unique in
Turgenev's books. He has, as a rule, not paid much attention to
growing boys; but the sympathy and tenderness shown in the depiction
of this impulsive, affectionate, chivalrous, clean-hearted boy prove
that the novelist's powers of analysis were equal to every phase of
human nature. No complete estimate of Turgenev can be made without
reading "Torrents of Spring;" for the Italian menage, the character of
Gemma and her young brother, and the absurd duelling punctilio are not
to be found elsewhere. And Maria is the very Principle of Evil; one
feels that if Satan had spoken to her in the Garden of Eden, she could
easily have tempted him; at all events, he would not have been the
most subtle beast in the field.

In 1876 Turgenev wrote "Virgin Soil." Of the seven novels, this is the
last, the longest, and the least. But it did not deserve then, and
does not deserve now, the merciless condemnation of the critics;
though they still take up stones to stone it. Never was a book about a
revolutionary movement, written by one in sympathy with it, so
lukewarm. Naturally the public could not swallow it, for even God
cannot digest a Laodicean. But the lukewarmness in this instance
arose, not from lack of conviction, but rather from the conviction
that things can really happen only in the fulness of time. Everything
in the story from first to last emphasises this fact and might be
considered a discourse on the text add to knowledge, temperance: and
to temperance, patience. But these virtues have never been in high
favour with revolutionists, which explains why so many revolutions are
abortive, and so many ephemeral. It is commonly said that the leading