The Torrent is the old story of the conflict between
duty and impulse ; between family tradition, bourgeois caution, reputa- tion,and comfort on the one side, with la vie de Bohente, rapture, spontaneity, danger, and beauty on the other. The hero is in the ranks of the party of the Right, inheriting from father and grandsire vast estates and political opportunities. He is a sort of Lorenzo dei Medici. The heroine is the daughter of a Republican doctor, and has returned to her native town to rest after bringing the old and the new worlds to her feet in adula- tion of her beauty and operatic genius. The love conflict, the passionate springtide spent half floating in the ocean of perfume from the orange orchards, are told with vivid power by the Spanish novelist. But at the last the ardour of the lover is chilled by the dead hand of his ancestry, and he forsakes the idyll, marries an heiress, goes into Parliament, and grows fat. It is all very magical to read, devastating the emotions like a Puccini opera ; but when it is all over we remember that life is not quite so romantic, so direct as this. There are so many side issues.
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