Returning to Russia from a tour in Italy, twenty-three-year-old Dimitry Sanin breaks his journey in Frankfurt. There he encounters the beautiful Gemma Roselli, who works in her parents` patisserie, and falls deeply and deliriously in love for the first time. Convinced that nothing can come in the way of everlasting happiness with his fiancee, Dimitry impetuously decides to begin a new life and sell his Russian estates. But when he meets the potential buyer, the intriguing Madame Polozov, his youthful vulnerability makes him prey for a darker, destructive infatuation. A novel of haunting beauty, "Spring Torrents" (1870-71) is a fascinating, partly autobiographical account of one of Turgenev`s favourite themes - a man`s inability to love without losing his innocence and becoming enslaved to obsessive passions. In the critical essay that accompanies his moving translation of Spring Torrents, Leonard Schapiro discusses Turgenev`s life and works, his relationships with women,...