‘If you feel the very slightest affection or respect for me,’ said Sanin, ‘you will go at once home or to Herr Klüber’s shop, and you won’t say one word to any one, and will wait for my return!’
‘Your return,’ moaned Emil–and his voice quivered and broke, ‘but if you’re–‘
‘Emil!’ Sanin interrupted–and he pointed to the coachman, ‘do control yourself! Emil, please, go home! Listen to me, my dear! You say you love me. Well, I beg you!’ He held out his hand to him. Emil bent forward, sobbed, pressed it to his lips, and darting away from the road, ran back towards Frankfort across country.
‘A noble heart too,’ muttered Pantaleone; but Sanin glanced severely at him…. The old man shrank into the corner of the carriage. He was conscious of his fault; and moreover, he felt more and more bewildered every instant; could it really be he who was acting as second, who had got horses, and had made all arrangements, and had left his peaceful abode at six o’clock? Besides, his legs were stiff and aching.
Sanin thought it as well to cheer him up, and he chanced on the very thing, he hit on the right word.
‘Where is your old spirit, Signor Cippatola? Where is _il antico valor_?’
Signor Cippatola drew himself up and scowled ‘_Il antico valor_?’ he boomed in a bass voice. ‘_Non è ancora spento_ (it’s not all lost yet), _il antico valor!_’
He put himself in a dignified attitude, began talking of his career, of the opera, of the great tenor Garcia–and arrived at Hanau a hero.
After all, if you think of it, nothing is stronger in the world … and weaker–than a word!
XXII
The copse in which the duel was to take place was a quarter of a mile from Hanau. Sanin and Pantaleone arrived there first, as the latter had predicted; they gave orders for the carriage to remain outside the wood, and they plunged into the shade of the rather thick and close-growing trees. They had to wait about an hour.
The time of waiting did not seem particularly disagreeable to Sanin; he walked up and down the path, listened to the birds singing, watched the dragonflies in their flight, and like the majority of Russians in similar circumstances, tried not to think. He only once dropped into reflection; he came across a young lime-tree, broken down, in all probability by the squall of the previous night. It was unmistakably dying … all the leaves on it were dead. ‘What is it? an omen?’ was the thought that flashed across his mind; but he promptly began whistling, leaped over the very tree, and paced up and down the path. As for Pantaleone, he was grumbling, abusing the Germans, sighing and moaning, rubbing first his back and then his knees. He even yawned from agitation, which gave a very comic expression to his tiny shrivelled-up face. Sanin could scarcely help laughing when he looked at him.
They heard, at last, the rolling of wheels along the soft road. ‘It’s they!’ said Pantaleone, and he was on the alert and drew himself up, not without a momentary nervous shiver, which he made haste, however, to cover with the ejaculation ‘B-r-r!’ and the remark that the morning was rather fresh. A heavy dew drenched the grass and leaves, but the sultry heat penetrated even into the wood.
Both the officers quickly made their appearance under its arched avenues; they were accompanied by a little thick-set man, with a phlegmatic, almost sleepy, expression of face–the army doctor. He carried in one hand an earthenware pitcher of water–to be ready for any emergency; a satchel with surgical instruments and bandages hung on his left shoulder. It was obvious that he was thoroughly used to such excursions; they constituted one of the sources of his income; each duel yielded him eight gold crowns–four from each of the combatants. Herr von Richter carried a case of pistols, Herr von Dönhof–probably considering it the thing–was swinging in his hand a little cane.
‘Pantaleone!’ Sanin whispered to the old man; ‘if … if I’m killed–anything may happen–take out of my side pocket a paper–there’s a flower wrapped up in it–and give the paper to Signorina Gemma. Do you hear? You promise?’
The old man looked dejectedly at him, and nodded his head affirmatively…. But God knows whether he understood what Sanin was asking him to do.
The combatants and the seconds exchanged the customary bows; the doctor alone did not move as much as an eyelash; he sat down yawning on the grass, as much as to say, ‘I’m not here for expressions of chivalrous courtesy.’ Herr von Richter proposed to Herr ‘Tshibadola’ that he should select the place; Herr ‘Tshibadola’ responded, moving his tongue with difficulty–‘the wall’ within him had completely given way again. ‘You act, my dear sir; I will watch….’
And Herr von Richter proceeded to act. He picked out in the wood close by a very pretty clearing all studded with flowers; he measured out the steps, and marked the two extreme points with sticks, which he cut and pointed. He took the pistols out of the case, and squatting on his heels, he rammed in the bullets; in short, he fussed about and exerted himself to the utmost, continually mopping his perspiring brow with a white handkerchief. Pantaleone, who accompanied him, was more like a man frozen. During all these preparations, the two principals stood at a little distance, looking like two schoolboys who have been punished, and are sulky with their tutors.
The decisive moment arrived…. ‘Each took his pistol….’
But at this point Herr von Richter observed to Pantaleone that it was his duty, as the senior second, according to the rules of the duel, to address a final word of advice and exhortation to be reconciled to the combatants, before uttering the fatal ‘one! two! three!’; that although this exhortation had no effect of any sort and was, as a rule, nothing but an empty formality, still, by the performance of this formality, Herr Cippatola would be rid of a certain share of responsibility; that, properly speaking, such an admonition formed the direct duty of the so-called ‘impartial witness’ (_unpartheiischer Zeuge_) but since they had no such person present, he, Herr von Richter, would readily yield this privilege to his honoured colleague. Pantaleone, who had already succeeded in obliterating himself behind a bush, so as not to see the offending officer at all, at first made out nothing at all of Herr von Richter’s speech, especially, as it had been delivered through the nose, but all of a sudden he started, stepped hurriedly forward, and convulsively thumping at his chest, in a hoarse voice wailed out in his mixed jargon: ‘_A la la la … Che bestialita! Deux zeun ommes comme ça que si battono–perchè? Che diavolo? An data a casa!_’
‘I will not consent to a reconciliation,’ Sanin intervened hurriedly.
‘And I too will not,’ his opponent repeated after him.
‘Well, then shout one, two, three!’ von Richter said, addressing the distracted Pantaleone. The latter promptly ducked behind the bush again, and from there, all huddled together, his eyes screwed up, and his head turned away, he shouted at the top of his voice: ‘_Una … due … tre!_’
The first shot was Sanin’s, and he missed. His bullet went ping against a tree. Baron von Dönhof shot directly after him–intentionally, to one side, into the air.
A constrained silence followed…. No one moved. Pantaleone uttered a faint moan.
‘Is it your wish to go on?’ said Dönhof.
‘Why did you shoot in the air?’ inquired Sanin.
‘That’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Will you shoot in the air the second time?’ Sanin asked again.
‘Possibly: I don’t know.’
‘Excuse me, excuse me, gentlemen …’ began von Richter; ‘duellists have not the right to talk together. That’s out of order.’
‘I decline my shot,’ said Sanin, and he threw his pistol on the ground.
‘And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,’ cried Dönhof, and he too threw his pistol on the ground. ‘And more than that, I am prepared to own that I was in the wrong–the day before yesterday.’
He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.
‘_Bravi! bravi!_’ Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad, and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.
‘Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!’ von Richter announced.
‘_Fuori!_’ Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.
* * * * *
When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling akin to shame…. The duel, in which he had just played his part, struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers’ and students’ farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Dönhof. And afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him … Ah! there was something nasty about it!
Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed … though, on the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have left the young officer’s insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her … that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he was conscience–smitten, and even ashamed.
Not so Pantaleone–he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with greater self-satisfaction. Sanin’s demeanour during the duel filled him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan! For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation of mind, ‘but, of course, I am an artist,’ he observed; ‘I have a highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the granite rocks.’
Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.
* * * * *
Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air, he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel, and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.
‘You are alive, you are not wounded!’ he kept repeating. ‘Forgive me, I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort … I could not! I waited for you here … Tell me how was it? You … killed him?’
Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.
With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander. He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the commander–Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as swiftly kissing his heroic friend.
The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.
Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little, gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished, to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that ‘that lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign gentleman.’ Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma. He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.
‘Did Fräulein Gemma know, then?’… he said slowly in a displeased voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following close on his heels.
Emil blushed and was confused.
‘I was obliged to tell her all,’ he faltered; ‘she guessed, and I could not help it…. But now that’s of no consequence,’ he hurried to add eagerly, ‘everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you well and uninjured!’
Sanin turned away.
‘What a couple of chatterboxes you are!’ he observed in a tone of annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.
‘Don’t be angry, please,’ Emil implored.
‘Very well, I won’t be angry’–(Sanin was not, in fact, angry–and, after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing about it). ‘Very well … that’s enough embracing. You get along now. I want to be alone. I’m going to sleep. I’m tired.’
‘An excellent idea!’ cried Pantaleone. ‘You need repose! You have fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On tip-toe! Sh–sh–sh!’
When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell immediately into a sound sleep.
XXIII
He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing him was Herr Klüber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one, one!
‘One … one … one!’ he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened his eyes, raised his head … some one was knocking at his door.
‘Come in!’ called Sanin.
The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished to see him.
‘Gemma!’ flashed into his head … but the lady turned out to be her mother, Frau Lenore.
Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to cry.
‘What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?’ began Sanin, sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. ‘What has happened? calm yourself, I entreat you.’
‘Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very … very miserable!’
‘You are miserable?’
‘Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like thunder from a clear sky …’
She caught her breath.
‘But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?’
‘No, thank you.’ Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and began to cry with renewed energy. ‘I know all, you see! All!’
‘All? that is to say?’
‘Everything that took place to-day! And the cause … I know that too! You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to Soden … quite right!’ (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had foreseen ‘all’ even then.) ‘I have come to you as to an honourable man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five days ago…. But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman…. My daughter …’
Tears choked Frau Lenore’s voice. Sanin did not know what to think. ‘Your daughter?’ he repeated.
‘My daughter, Gemma,’ broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore, behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, ‘informed me to-day that she would not marry Herr Klüber, and that I must refuse him!’
Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
‘I won’t say anything now,’ Frau Lenore went on, ‘of the disgrace of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to jilt her betrothed; but you see it’s ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!’ Frau Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny, tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it. ‘We can’t go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and Herr Klüber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that was not very handsome on his part, still, he’s a civilian, has not had a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?’
‘Excuse me, Frau Lenore, you seem to be blaming me.’
‘I am not blaming you in the least, not in the least! You’re quite another matter; you are, like all Russians, a military man …’
‘Excuse me, I’m not at all …’
‘You’re a foreigner, a visitor, and I’m grateful to you,’ Frau Lenore went on, not heeding Sanin. She sighed, waved her hands, unwound her handkerchief again, and blew her nose. Simply from the way in which her distress expressed itself, it could be seen that she had not been born under a northern sky.
‘And how is Herr Klüber to look after his shop, if he is to fight with his customers? It’s utterly inconsistent! And now I am to send him away! But what are we going to live on? At one time we were the only people that made angel cakes, and nougat of pistachio nuts, and we had plenty of customers; but now all the shops make angel cakes! Only consider; even without this, they’ll talk in the town about your duel … it’s impossible to keep it secret. And all of a sudden, the marriage broken off! It will be a scandal, a scandal! Gemma is a splendid girl, she loves me; but she’s an obstinate republican, she doesn’t care for the opinion of others. You’re the only person that can persuade her!’
Sanin was more amazed than ever. ‘I, Frau Lenore?’
‘Yes, you alone … you alone. That’s why I have come to you; I could not think of anything else to do! You are so clever, so good! You have fought in her defence. She will trust you! She is bound to trust you–why, you have risked your life on her account! You will make her understand, for I can do nothing more; you make her understand that she will bring ruin on herself and all of us. You saved my son–save my daughter too! God Himself sent you here … I am ready on my knees to beseech you….’ And Frau Lenore half rose from her seat as though about to fall at Sanin’s feet…. He restrained her.
‘Frau Lenore! For mercy’s sake! What are you doing?’
She clutched his hand impulsively. ‘You promise …’
‘Frau Lenore, think a moment; what right have I …’
‘You promise? You don’t want me to die here at once before your eyes?’
Sanin was utterly nonplussed. It was the first time in his life he had had to deal with any one of ardent Italian blood.
‘I will do whatever you like,’ he cried. ‘I will talk to Fräulein Gemma….’
Frau Lenore uttered a cry of delight.
‘Only I really can’t say what result will come of it …’
‘Ah, don’t go back, don’t go back from your words!’ cried Frau Lenore in an imploring voice; ‘you have already consented! The result is certain to be excellent. Any way, _I_ can do nothing more! She won’t listen to _me_!’
‘Has she so positively stated her disinclination to marry Herr Klüber?’ Sanin inquired after a short silence.
‘As if she’d cut the knot with a knife! She’s her father all over, Giovanni Battista! Wilful girl!’
‘Wilful? Is she!’ … Sanin said slowly. ‘Yes … yes … but she’s an angel too. She will mind you. Are you coming soon? Oh, my dear Russian friend!’ Frau Lenore rose impulsively from her chair, and as impulsively clasped the head of Sanin, who was sitting opposite her. ‘Accept a mother’s blessing–and give me some water!’
Sanin brought Signora Roselli a glass of water, gave her his word of honour that he would come directly, escorted her down the stairs to the street, and when he was back in his own room, positively threw up his arms and opened his eyes wide in his amazement.
‘Well,’ he thought, ‘well, _now_ life is going round in a whirl! And it’s whirling so that I’m giddy.’ He did not attempt to look within, to realise what was going on in himself: it was all uproar and confusion, and that was all he knew! What a day it had been! His lips murmured unconsciously: ‘Wilful … her mother says … and I have got to advise her … her! And advise her what?’
Sanin, really, was giddy, and above all this whirl of shifting sensations and impressions and unfinished thoughts, there floated continually the image of Gemma, the image so ineffaceably impressed on his memory on that hot night, quivering with electricity, in that dark window, in the light of the swarming stars!
XXIV
With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora Roselli. His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even heard it thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should he begin? He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the back entrance. In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was both relieved and scared at the sight of him.
‘I have been expecting you,’ she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand with each of hers in turn. ‘Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I rely on you!’
Sanin went into the garden.
Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them on a dish. The sun was low–it was seven o’clock in the evening–and there was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which it flooded the whole of Signora Roselli’s little garden. From time to time, faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves rustled, and belated bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one flower to the next, and somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing, unceasing note. Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had driven to Soden. She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim, and again bent over the basket.
Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter, and … and … and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask why was she sorting the cherries.
Gemma was in no haste to reply.
‘These are riper,’ she observed at last, ‘they will go into jam, and those are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?’
As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air between the basket and the dish.
‘May I sit by you?’ asked Sanin.
‘Yes.’ Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself beside her. ‘How am I to begin?’ was his thought. But Gemma got him out of his difficulty.
‘You have fought a duel to-day,’ she began eagerly, and she turned all her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him–and what depths of gratitude were shining in those eyes! ‘And you are so calm! I suppose for you danger does not exist?’
‘Oh, come! I have not been exposed to any danger. Everything went off very satisfactorily and inoffensively.’
Gemma passed her finger to right and to left before her eyes … Also an Italian gesture. ‘No! no! don’t say that! You won’t deceive me! Pantaleone has told me everything!’
‘He’s a trustworthy witness! Did he compare me to the statue of the commander?’
‘His expressions may be ridiculous, but his feeling is not ridiculous, nor is what you have done to-day. And all that on my account … for me … I shall never forget it.’
‘I assure you, Fräulein Gemma …’
‘I shall never forget it,’ she said deliberately; once more she looked intently at him, and turned away.
He could now see her delicate pure profile, and it seemed to him that he had never seen anything like it, and had never known anything like what he was feeling at that instant. His soul was on fire.
‘And my promise!’ flashed in among his thoughts.
‘Fräulein Gemma …’ he began after a momentary hesitation.
‘What?’
She did not turn to him, she went on sorting the cherries, carefully taking them by their stalks with her finger-tips, assiduously picking out the leaves…. But what a confiding caress could be heard in that one word,
‘What?’
‘Has your mother said nothing to you … about …’
‘About?’
‘About me?’
Gemma suddenly flung back into the basket the cherries she had taken.
‘Has she been talking to you?’ she asked in her turn.
‘Yes.’
‘What has she been saying to you?’
‘She told me that you … that you have suddenly decided to change … your former intention.’ Gemma’s head was bent again. She vanished altogether under her hat; nothing could be seen but her neck, supple and tender as the stalk of a big flower.
‘What intentions?’
‘Your intentions … relative to … the future arrangement of your life.’
‘That is … you are speaking … of Herr Klüber?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mamma told you I don’t want to be Herr Klüber’s wife?’
‘Yes.’
Gemma moved forward on the seat. The basket tottered, fell … a few cherries rolled on to the path. A minute passed by … another.
‘Why did she tell you so?’ he heard her voice saying. Sanin as before could only see Gemma’s neck. Her bosom rose and fell more rapidly than before.
‘Why? Your mother thought that as you and I, in a short time, have become, so to say, friends, and you have some confidence in me, I am in a position to give you good advice–and you would mind what I say.’
Gemma’s hands slowly slid on to her knees. She began plucking at the folds of her dress.
‘What advice will you give me, Monsieur Dimitri?’ she asked, after a short pause.
Sanin saw that Gemma’s fingers were trembling on her knees…. She was only plucking at the folds of her dress to hide their trembling. He softly laid his hand on those pale, shaking fingers.
‘Gemma,’ he said, ‘why don’t you look at me?’ She instantly tossed her hat back on to her shoulder, and bent her eyes upon him, confiding and grateful as before. She waited for him to speak…. But the sight of her face had bewildered, and, as it were, dazed him. The warm glow of the evening sun lighted up her youthful head, and the expression of that head was brighter, more radiant than its glow.
‘I will mind what you say, Monsieur Dimitri,’ she said, faintly smiling, and faintly arching her brows; ‘but what advice do you give me?’
‘What advice?’ repeated Sanin. ‘Well, you see, your mother considers that to dismiss Herr Klüber simply because he did not show any special courage the day before yesterday …’
‘Simply because?’ said Gemma. She bent down, picked up the basket, and set it beside her on the garden seat.
‘That … altogether … to dismiss him, would be, on your part … unreasonable; that it is a step, all the consequences of which ought to be thoroughly weighed; that in fact the very position of your affairs imposes certain obligations on every member of your family …’
‘All that is mamma’s opinion,’ Gemma interposed; ‘those are her words; but what is your opinion?’
‘Mine?’ Sanin was silent for a while. He felt a lump rising in his throat and catching at his breath. ‘I too consider,’ he began with an effort …
Gemma drew herself up. ‘Too? You too?’
‘Yes … that is …’ Sanin was unable, positively unable to add a single word more.
‘Very well,’ said Gemma. ‘If you, as a friend, advise me to change my decision–that is, not to change my former decision–I will think it over.’ Not knowing what she was doing, she began to tip the cherries back from the plate into the basket…. ‘Mamma hopes that I will mind what you say. Well … perhaps I really will mind what you say.’
‘But excuse me, Fräulein Gemma, I should like first to know what reason impelled you …’
‘I will mind what you say,’ Gemma repeated, her face right up to her brows was working, her cheeks were white, she was biting her lower lip. ‘You have done so much for me, that I am bound to do as you wish; bound to carry out your wishes. I will tell mamma … I will think again. Here she is, by the way, coming here.’
Frau Lenore did in fact appear in the doorway leading from the house to the garden. She was in an agony of impatience; she could not keep still. According to her calculations, Sanin must long ago have finished all he had to say to Gemma, though his conversation with her had not lasted a quarter of an hour.
‘No, no, no, for God’s sake, don’t tell her anything yet,’ Sanin articulated hurriedly, almost in alarm. ‘Wait a little … I will tell you, I will write to you … and till then don’t decide on anything … wait!’
He pressed Gemma’s hand, jumped up from the seat, and to Frau Lenore’s great amazement, rushed past her, and raising his hat, muttered something unintelligible–and vanished.
She went up to her daughter.
‘Tell me, please, Gemma…’
The latter suddenly got up and hugged her. ‘Dear mamma, can you wait a little, a tiny bit … till to-morrow? Can you? And till to-morrow not a word?… Ah!…’
She burst into sudden happy tears, incomprehensible to herself. This surprised Frau Lenore, the more as the expression of Gemma’s face was far from sorrowful,–rather joyful in fact.
‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You never cry and here, all at once …’
‘Nothing, mamma, never mind! you only wait. We must both wait a little. Don’t ask me anything till to-morrow–and let us sort the cherries before the sun has set.’
‘But you will be reasonable?’
‘Oh, I’m very reasonable!’ Gemma shook her head significantly. She began to make up little bunches of cherries, holding them high above her flushed face. She did not wipe away her tears; they had dried of themselves.
XXV
Almost running, Sanin returned to his hotel room. He felt, he knew that only there, only by himself, would it be clear to him at last what was the matter, what was happening to him. And so it was; directly he had got inside his room, directly he had sat down to the writing-table, with both elbows on the table and both hands pressed to his face, he cried in a sad and choked voice, ‘I love her, love her madly!’ and he was all aglow within, like a fire when a thick layer of dead ash has been suddenly blown off. An instant more … and he was utterly unable to understand how he could have sat beside her … her!–and talked to her and not have felt that he worshipped the very hem of her garment, that he was ready as young people express it ‘to die at her feet.’ The last interview in the garden had decided everything. Now when he thought of her, she did not appear to him with blazing curls in the shining starlight; he saw her sitting on the garden-seat, saw her all at once tossing back her hat, and gazing at him so confidingly … and the tremor and hunger of love ran through all his veins. He remembered the rose which he had been carrying about in his pocket for three days: he snatched it out, and pressed it with such feverish violence to his lips, that he could not help frowning with the pain. Now he considered nothing, reflected on nothing, did not deliberate, and did not look forward; he had done with all his past, he leaped forward into the future; from the dreary bank of his lonely bachelor life he plunged headlong into that glad, seething, mighty torrent–and little he cared, little he wished to know, where it would carry him, or whether it would dash him against a rock! No more the soft-flowing currents of the Uhland song, which had lulled him not long ago … These were mighty, irresistible torrents! They rush flying onwards and he flies with them….
He took a sheet of paper, and without blotting out a word, almost with one sweep of the pen, wrote as follows:–
‘DEAR GEMMA,–You know what advice I undertook to give you, what your mother desired, and what she asked of me; but what you don’t know and what I must tell you now is, that I love you, love you with all the ardour of a heart that loves for the first time! This passion has flamed up in me suddenly, but with such force that I can find no words for it! When your mother came to me and asked me, it was still only smouldering in me, or else I should certainly, as an honest man, have refused to carry out her request…. The confession I make you now is the confession of an honest man. You ought to know whom you have to do with–between us there should exist no misunderstandings. You see that I cannot give you any advice…. I love you, love you, love you–and I have nothing else–either in my head or in my heart!!
‘DM. SANIN.’
When he had folded and sealed this note, Sanin was on the point of ringing for the waiter and sending it by him…. ‘No!’ he thought, ‘it would be awkward…. By Emil? But to go to the shop, and seek him out there among the other employés, would be awkward too. Besides, it’s dark by now, and he has probably left the shop.’ Reflecting after this fashion, Sanin put on his hat, however, and went into the street; he turned a corner, another, and to his unspeakable delight, saw Emil before him. With a satchel under his arm, and a roll of papers in his hand, the young enthusiast was hurrying home.
‘They may well say every lover has a lucky star,’ thought Sanin, and he called to Emil.
The latter turned and at once rushed to him.
Sanin cut short his transports, handed him the note, and explained to whom and how he was to deliver it…. Emil listened attentively.
‘So that no one sees?’ he inquired, assuming an important and mysterious air, that said, ‘We understand the inner meaning of it all!’
‘Yes, my friend,’ said Sanin and he was a little disconcerted; however, he patted Emil on the cheek…. ‘And if there should be an answer…. You will bring me the answer, won’t you? I will stay at home.’
‘Don’t worry yourself about that!’ Emil whispered gaily; he ran off, and as he ran nodded once more to him.
Sanin went back home, and without lighting a candle, flung himself on the sofa, put his hands behind his head, and abandoned himself to those sensations of newly conscious love, which it is no good even to describe. One who has felt them knows their languor and sweetness; to one who has felt them not, one could never make them known.
The door opened–Emil’s head appeared.
‘I have brought it,’ he said in a whisper: ‘here it is–the answer!’
He showed and waved above his head a folded sheet of paper.
Sanin leaped up from the sofa and snatched it out of Emil’s hand. Passion was working too powerfully within him: he had no thought of reserve now, nor of the observance of a suitable demeanour–even before this boy, her brother. He would have been scrupulous, he would have controlled himself–if he could!
He went to the window, and by the light of a street lamp which stood just opposite the house, he read the following lines:–
I beg you, I beseech you–_don’t come to see us, don’t show yourself all day to-morrow_. It’s necessary, absolutely necessary for me, and then everything shall be settled. I know you will not say no, because …
‘GEMMA.’
Sanin read this note twice through. Oh, how touchingly sweet and beautiful her handwriting seemed to him! He thought a little, and turning to Emil, who, wishing to give him to understand what a discreet young person he was, was standing with his face to the wall, and scratching on it with his finger-nails, he called him aloud by name.
Emil ran at once to Sanin. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Listen, my young friend…’
‘Monsieur Dimitri,’ Emil interrupted in a plaintive voice, ‘why do you address me so formally?’
Sanin laughed. ‘Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy–(Emil gave a little skip of delight)–listen; _there_ you understand, there, you will say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished–(Emil compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)–and as for me … what are you doing to-morrow, my dear boy?’
‘I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?’
‘If you can, come to me early in the morning–and we will walk about the country round Frankfort till evening…. Would you like to?’
Emil gave another little skip. ‘I say, what in the world could be jollier? Go a walk with you–why, it’s simply glorious! I’ll be sure to come!’
‘And if they won’t let you?’
‘They will let me!’
‘Listen … Don’t say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole day.’
‘Why should I? But I’ll get away all the same! What does it matter?’
Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed. He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he was like his sister. ‘He will recall her,’ was his thought.
But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
XXVI
At eight o’clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin’s hotel leading Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could not have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he had said he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then going to the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to him, rather hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture with Herr Klüber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and Emil, looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should not be touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only assumed from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
After drinking coffee, the two friends set off together–on foot, of course–to Hausen, a little village lying a short distance from Frankfort, and surrounded by woods. The whole chain of the Taunus mountains could be seen clearly from there. The weather was lovely; the sunshine was bright and warm, but not blazing hot; a fresh wind rustled briskly among the green leaves; the shadows of high, round clouds glided swiftly and smoothly in small patches over the earth. The two young people soon got out of the town, and stepped out boldly and gaily along the well-kept road. They reached the woods, and wandered about there a long time; then they lunched very heartily at a country inn; then climbed on to the mountains, admired the views, rolled stones down and clapped their hands, watching the queer droll way in which the stones hopped along like rabbits, till a man passing below, unseen by them, began abusing them in a loud ringing voice. Then they lay full length on the short dry moss of yellowish-violet colour; then they drank beer at another inn; ran races, and tried for a wager which could jump farthest. They discovered an echo, and began to call to it; sang songs, hallooed, wrestled, broke up dry twigs, decked their hats with fern, and even danced. Tartaglia, as far as he could, shared in all these pastimes; he did not throw stones, it is true, but he rolled head over heels after them; he howled when they were singing, and even drank beer, though with evident aversion; he had been trained in this art by a student to whom he had once belonged. But he was not prompt in obeying Emil–not as he was with his master Pantaleone–and when Emil ordered him to ‘speak,’ or to ‘sneeze,’ he only wagged his tail and thrust out his tongue like a pipe.
The young people talked, too. At the beginning of the walk, Sanin, as the elder, and so more reflective, turned the conversation on fate and predestination, and the nature and meaning of man’s destiny; but the conversation quickly took a less serious turn. Emil began to question his friend and patron about Russia, how duels were fought there, and whether the women there were beautiful, and whether one could learn Russian quickly, and what he had felt when the officer took aim at him. Sanin, on his side, questioned Emil about his father, his mother, and in general about their family affairs, trying every time not to mention Gemma’s name–and thinking only of her. To speak more precisely, it was not of her he was thinking, but of the morrow, the mysterious morrow which was to bring him new, unknown happiness! It was as though a veil, a delicate, bright veil, hung faintly fluttering before his mental vision; and behind this veil he felt … felt the presence of a youthful, motionless, divine image, with a tender smile on its lips, and eyelids severely–with affected seventy–downcast. And this image was not the face of Gemma, it was the face of happiness itself! For, behold, at last _his_ hour had come, the veil had vanished, the lips were parting, the eyelashes are raised–his divinity has looked upon him–and at once light as from the sun, and joy and bliss unending! He dreamed of this morrow–and his soul thrilled with joy again in the melting torture of ever-growing expectation!
And this expectation, this torture, hindered nothing. It accompanied every action, and did not prevent anything. It did not prevent him from dining capitally at a third inn with Emil; and only occasionally, like a brief flash of lightning, the thought shot across him, What if any one in the world knew? This suspense did not prevent him from playing leap-frog with Emil after dinner. The game took place on an open green lawn. And the confusion, the stupefaction of Sanin may be imagined! At the very moment when, accompanied by a sharp bark from Tartaglia, he was flying like a bird, with his legs outspread over Emil, who was bent double, he suddenly saw on the farthest border of the lawn two officers, in whom he recognised at once his adversary and his second, Herr von Dönhof and Herr von Richter! Each of them had stuck an eyeglass in his eye, and was staring at him, chuckling!… Sanin got on his feet, turned away hurriedly, put on the coat he had flung down, jerked out a word to Emil; the latter, too, put on his jacket, and they both immediately made off.
It was late when they got back to Frankfort. ‘They’ll scold me,’ Emil said to Sanin as he said good-bye to him. ‘Well, what does it matter? I’ve had such a splendid, splendid day!’
When he got home to his hotel, Sanin found a note there from Gemma. She fixed a meeting with him for next day, at seven o’clock in the morning, in one of the public gardens which surround Frankfort on all sides.
How his heart throbbed! How glad he was that he had obeyed her so unconditionally! And, my God, what was promised … what was not promised, by that unknown, unique, impossible, and undubitably certain morrow!
He feasted his eyes on Gemma’s note. The long, elegant tail of the letter G, the first letter of her name, which stood at the bottom of the sheet, reminded him of her lovely fingers, her hand…. He thought that he had not once touched that hand with his lips…. ‘Italian women,’ he mused, ‘in spite of what’s said of them, are modest and severe…. And Gemma above all! Queen … goddess … pure, virginal marble….’
‘But the time will come; and it is not far off….’ There was that night in Frankfort one happy man…. He slept; but he might have said of himself in the words of the poet:
‘I sleep … but my watchful heart sleeps not.’
And it fluttered as lightly as a butterfly flutters his wings, as he stoops over the flowers in the summer sunshine.
XXVII
At five o’clock Sanin woke up, at six he was dressed, at half-past six he was walking up and down the public garden within sight of the little arbour which Gemma had mentioned in her note. It was a still, warm, grey morning. It sometimes seemed as though it were beginning to rain; but the outstretched hand felt nothing, and only looking at one’s coat-sleeve, one could see traces of tiny drops like diminutive beads, but even these were soon gone. It seemed there had never been a breath of wind in the world. Every sound moved not, but was shed around in the stillness. In the distance was a faint thickening of whitish mist; in the air there was a scent of mignonette and white acacia flowers.
In the streets the shops were not open yet, but there were already some people walking about; occasionally a solitary carriage rumbled along … there was no one walking in the garden. A gardener was in a leisurely way scraping the path with a spade, and a decrepit old woman in a black woollen cloak was hobbling across the garden walk. Sanin could not for one instant mistake this poor old creature for Gemma; and yet his heart leaped, and he watched attentively the retreating patch of black.
Seven! chimed the clock on the tower. Sanin stood still. Was it possible she would not come? A shiver of cold suddenly ran through his limbs. The same shiver came again an instant later, but from a different cause. Sanin heard behind him light footsteps, the light rustle of a woman’s dress…. He turned round: she!
Gemma was coming up behind him along the path. She was wearing a grey cape and a small dark hat. She glanced at Sanin, turned her head away, and catching him up, passed rapidly by him.
‘Gemma,’ he articulated, hardly audibly.
She gave him a little nod, and continued to walk on in front. He followed her.
He breathed in broken gasps. His legs shook under him.
Gemma passed by the arbour, turned to the right, passed by a small flat fountain, in which the sparrows were splashing busily, and, going behind a clump of high lilacs, sank down on a bench. The place was snug and hidden. Sanin sat down beside her.
A minute passed, and neither he nor she uttered a word. She did not even look at him; and he gazed not at her face, but at her clasped hands, in which she held a small parasol. What was there to tell, what was there to say, which could compare, in importance, with the simple fact of their presence there, together, alone, so early, so close to each other.
‘You … are not angry with me?’ Sanin articulated at last.
It would have been difficult for Sanin to have said anything more foolish than these words … he was conscious of it himself…. But, at any rate, the silence was broken.
‘Angry?’ she answered. ‘What for? No.’
‘And you believe me?’ he went on.
‘In what you wrote?’
‘Yes.’
Gemma’s head sank, and she said nothing. The parasol slipped out of her hands. She hastily caught it before it dropped on the path.
‘Ah, believe me! believe what I wrote to you!’ cried Sanin; all his timidity suddenly vanished, he spoke with heat; ‘if there is truth on earth–sacred, absolute truth–it’s that I love, love you passionately, Gemma.’
She flung him a sideway, momentary glance, and again almost dropped the parasol.
‘Believe me! believe me!’ he repeated. He besought her, held out his hands to her, and did not dare to touch her. ‘What do you want me to do … to convince you?’
She glanced at him again.
‘Tell me, Monsieur Dimitri,’ she began; ‘the day before yesterday, when you came to talk to me, you did not, I imagine, know then … did not feel …’
‘I felt it,’ Sanin broke in; ‘but I did not know it. I have loved you from the very instant I saw you; but I did not realise at once what you had become to me! And besides, I heard that you were solemnly betrothed…. As far as your mother’s request is concerned–in the first place, how could I refuse?–and secondly, I think I carried out her request in such a way that you could guess….’
They heard a heavy tread, and a rather stout gentleman with a knapsack over his shoulder, apparently a foreigner, emerged from behind the clump, and staring, with the unceremoniousness of a tourist, at the couple sitting on the garden-seat, gave a loud cough and went on.
‘Your mother,’ Sanin began, as soon as the sound of the heavy footsteps had ceased, ‘told me your breaking off your engagement would cause a scandal’–Gemma frowned a little–that I was myself in part responsible for unpleasant gossip, and that … consequently … I was, to some extent, under an obligation to advise you not to break with your betrothed, Herr Klüber….’
‘Monsieur Dimitri,’ said Gemma, and she passed her hand over her hair on the side turned towards Sanin, ‘don’t, please, call Herr Klüber my betrothed. I shall never be his wife. I have broken with him.’
‘You have broken with him? when?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘You saw him?’
‘Yes. At our house. He came to see us.’
‘Gemma? Then you love me?’
She turned to him.
‘Should … I have come here, if not?’ she whispered, and both her hands fell on the seat.
Sanin snatched those powerless, upturned palms, and pressed them to his eyes, to his lips…. Now the veil was lifted of which he had dreamed the night before! Here was happiness, here was its radiant form!
He raised his head, and looked at Gemma, boldly and directly. She, too, looked at him, a little downwards. Her half-shut eyes faintly glistened, dim with light, blissful tears. Her face was not smiling … no! it laughed, with a blissful, noiseless laugh.
He tried to draw her to him, but she drew back, and never ceasing to laugh the same noiseless laugh, shook her head. ‘Wait a little,’ her happy eyes seemed to say.
‘O Gemma!’ cried Sanin: ‘I never dreamed that you would love me!’
‘I did not expect this myself,’ Gemma said softly.
‘How could I ever have dreamed,’ Sanin went on, ‘when I came to Frankfort, where I only expected to remain a few hours, that I should find here the happiness of all my life!’
‘All your life? Really?’ queried Gemma.
‘All my life, for ever and ever!’ cried Sanin with fresh ardour.
The gardener’s spade suddenly scraped two paces from where they were sitting.
‘Let’s go home,’ whispered Gemma: ‘we’ll go together–will you?’
If she had said to him at that instant ‘Throw yourself in the sea, will you?’ he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before she had uttered the last word.
They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the streets of the town, but through the outskirts.
XXVIII
Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma’s side, at another time a little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased smiling. She seemed to hasten … seemed to linger. As a matter of fact, they both–he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion–were moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants before–that surrender of each soul to another soul–was so intense, so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind on that night, which had almost flung them into each other’s arms. Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her movements,–and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.
Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered in one instant; youth mounts the barricade, waves high its bright flag, and whatever awaits it in the future–death or a new life–all alike it goes to meet with ecstatic welcome.
‘What’s this? Isn’t that our old friend?’ said Sanin, pointing to a muffled-up figure, which hurriedly slipped a little aside as though trying to remain unobserved. In the midst of his abundant happiness he felt a need to talk to Gemma, not of love–that was a settled thing and holy–but of something else.
‘Yes, it’s Pantaleone,’ Gemma answered gaily and happily. ‘Most likely he has been following me ever since I left home; all day yesterday he kept watching every movement I made … He guesses!’
‘He guesses!’ Sanin repeated in ecstasy. What could Gemma have said at which he would not have been in ecstasy?
Then he asked her to tell him in detail all that had passed the day before.
And she began at once telling him, with haste, and confusion, and smiles, and brief sighs, and brief bright looks exchanged with Sanin. She said that after their conversation the day before yesterday, mamma had kept trying to get out of her something positive; but that she had put off Frau Lenore with a promise to tell her her decision within twenty-four hours; how she had demanded this limit of time for herself, and how difficult it had been to get it; how utterly unexpectedly Herr Klüber had made his appearance more starched and affected than ever; how he had given vent to his indignation at the childish, unpardonable action of the Russian stranger–‘he meant your duel, Dimitri,’–which he described as deeply insulting to him, Klüber, and how he had demanded that ‘you should be at once refused admittance to the house, Dimitri.’ ‘For,’ he had added–and here Gemma slightly mimicked his voice and manner–‘”it casts a slur on my honour; as though I were not able to defend my betrothed, had I thought it necessary or advisable! All Frankfort will know by to-morrow that an outsider has fought a duel with an officer on account of my betrothed–did any one ever hear of such a thing! It tarnishes my honour!” Mamma agreed with him–fancy!–but then I suddenly told him that he was troubling himself unnecessarily about his honour and his character, and was unnecessarily annoyed at the gossip about his betrothed, for I was no longer betrothed to him and would never be his wife! I must own, I had meant to talk to you first … before breaking with him finally; but he came … and I could not restrain myself. Mamma positively screamed with horror, but I went into the next room and got his ring–you didn’t notice, I took it off two days ago–and gave it to him. He was fearfully offended, but as he is fearfully self-conscious and conceited, he did not say much, and went away. Of course I had to go through a great deal with mamma, and it made me very wretched to see how distressed she was, and I thought I had been a little hasty; but you see I had your note, and even apart from it I knew …’
‘That I love you,’ put in Sanin.
‘Yes … that you were in love with me.’
So Gemma talked, hesitating and smiling and dropping her voice or stopping altogether every time any one met them or passed by. And Sanin listened ecstatically, enjoying the very sound of her voice, as the day before he had gloated over her handwriting.
‘Mamma is very much distressed,’ Gemma began again, and her words flew very rapidly one after another; ‘she refuses to take into consideration that I dislike Herr Klüber, that I never was betrothed to him from love, but only because of her urgent entreaties…. She suspects–you, Dimitri; that’s to say, to speak plainly, she’s convinced I’m in love with you, and she is more unhappy about it because only the day before yesterday nothing of the sort had occurred to her, and she even begged you to advise me…. It was a strange request, wasn’t it? Now she calls you … Dimitri, a hypocrite and a cunning fellow, says that you have betrayed her confidence, and predicts that you will deceive me….’
‘But, Gemma,’ cried Sanin, ‘do you mean to say you didn’t tell her?…’
‘I told her nothing! What right had I without consulting you?’
Sanin threw up his arms. ‘Gemma, I hope that now, at least, you will tell all to her and take me to her…. I want to convince your mother that I am not a base deceiver!’
Sanin’s bosom fairly heaved with the flood of generous and ardent emotions.
Gemma looked him full in the face. ‘You really want to go with me now to mamma? to mamma, who maintains that … all this between us is impossible–and can never come to pass?’ There was one word Gemma could not bring herself to utter…. It burnt her lips; but all the more eagerly Sanin pronounced it.
‘Marry you, Gemma, be your husband–I can imagine no bliss greater!’
To his love, his magnanimity, his determination–he was aware of no limits now.
When she heard those words, Gemma, who had stopped still for an instant, went on faster than ever…. She seemed trying to run away from this too great and unexpected happiness! But suddenly her steps faltered. Round the corner of a turning, a few paces from her, in a new hat and coat, straight as an arrow and curled like a poodle–emerged Herr Klüber. He caught sight of Gemma, caught sight of Sanin, and with a sort of inward snort and a backward bend of his supple figure, he advanced with a dashing swing to meet them. Sanin felt a pang; but glancing at Klüber’s face, to which its owner endeavoured, as far as in him lay, to give an expression of scornful amazement, and even commiseration, glancing at that red-cheeked, vulgar face, he felt a sudden rush of anger, and took a step forward.
Gemma seized his arm, and with quiet decision, giving him hers, she looked her former betrothed full in the face…. The latter screwed up his face, shrugged his shoulders, shuffled to one side, and muttering between his teeth, ‘The usual end to the song!’ (Das alte Ende vom Liede!)–walked away with the same dashing, slightly skipping gait.
‘What did he say, the wretched creature?’ asked Sanin, and would have rushed after Klüber; but Gemma held him back and walked on with him, not taking away the arm she had slipped into his.
The Rosellis’ shop came into sight. Gemma stopped once more.
‘Dimitri, Monsieur Dimitri,’ she said, ‘we are not there yet, we have not seen mamma yet…. If you would rather think a little, if … you are still free, Dimitri!’
In reply Sanin pressed her hand tightly to his bosom, and drew her on.
‘Mamma,’ said Gemma, going with Sanin to the room where Frau Lenore was sitting, ‘I have brought the real one!’
XXIX
If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received the news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner, with her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied, to the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour that inconsolable wail went on–a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it better to shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should come; luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know what to think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with which Gemma and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame them, and was prepared to give them his support in case of need: he greatly disliked Klüber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of communication between his friend and his sister, and almost prided himself on its all having turned out so splendidly! He was positively unable to conceive why Frau Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he decided on the spot that women, even the best of them, suffer from a lack of reasoning power! Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to a howl and waved him off with her hands, directly he approached her; and it was in vain that he attempted once or twice to shout aloud, standing at a distance, ‘I ask you for your daughter’s hand!’ Frau Lenore was particularly angry with herself. ‘How could she have been so blind–have seen nothing? Had my Giovann’ Battista been alive,’ she persisted through her tears, ‘nothing of this sort would have happened!’ ‘Heavens, what’s it all about?’ thought Sanin; ‘why, it’s positively senseless!’ He did not dare to look at Gemma, nor could she pluck up courage to lift her eyes to him. She restricted herself to waiting patiently on her mother, who at first repelled even her….
At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping, permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin–not to approach … oh, no!–but, at any rate, to remain in the room–she had kept clamouring for him to go away–and did not interrupt him when he spoke. Sanin immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and displayed an astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his intentions and emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to Gemma herself. Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions were of the purest, like Almaviva’s in the _Barber of Seville_. He did not conceal from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous side of those intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent! It is true he was a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew nothing positive about himself or his means; but he was prepared to bring forward all the necessary evidence that he was a respectable person and not poor; he would refer them to the most unimpeachable testimony of his fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with him, and that he would be able to make up to her for the separation from her own people!… The allusion to ‘separation’–the mere word ‘separation’–almost spoiled the whole business…. Frau Lenore began to tremble all over and move about uneasily…. Sanin hastened to observe that the separation would only be temporary, and that, in fact, possibly it would not take place at all!
Sanin’s eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the same aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and even to sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side); then she fell to reproaching him,–not in looks only, but in words, which already indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to complaining, and her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were interspersed with questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and at another to Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did not at once pull it away … then she wept again, but her tears were now quite of another kind…. Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented the absence of Giovanni Battista, but quite on different grounds from before…. An instant more and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma, were on their knees at her feet, and she was laying her hands on their heads in turn; another instant and they were embracing and kissing her, and Emil, his face beaming rapturously, ran into the room and added himself to the group so warmly united.
Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time, and going into the shop, opened the front door.
XXX
The transition from despair to sadness, and from that to ‘gentle resignation,’ was accomplished fairly quickly in Frau Lenore; but that gentle resignation, too, was not slow in changing into a secret satisfaction, which was, however, concealed in every way and suppressed for the sake of appearances. Sanin had won Frau Lenore’s heart from the first day of their acquaintance; as she got used to the idea of his being her son-in-law, she found nothing particularly distasteful in it, though she thought it her duty to preserve a somewhat hurt, or rather careworn, expression on her face. Besides, everything that had happened the last few days had been so extraordinary…. One thing upon the top of another. As a practical woman and a mother, Frau Lenore considered it her duty also to put Sanin through various questions; and Sanin, who, on setting out that morning to meet Gemma, had not a notion that he should marry her–it is true he did not think of anything at all at that time, but simply gave himself up to the current of his passion–Sanin entered, with perfect readiness, one might even say with zeal, into his part–the part of the betrothed lover, and answered all her inquiries circumstantially, exactly, with alacrity. When she had satisfied herself that he was a real nobleman by birth, and had even expressed some surprise that he was not a prince, Frau Lenore assumed a serious air and ‘warned him betimes’ that she should be quite unceremoniously frank with him, as she was forced to be so by her sacred duty as a mother! To which Sanin replied that he expected nothing else from her, and that he earnestly begged her not to spare him!
Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klüber–as she uttered the name, she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated–Herr Klüber, Gemma’s former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin’s income? ‘Eight thousand guldens,’ Sanin repeated deliberately…. ‘That’s in our money … about fifteen thousand roubles…. My income is much smaller. I have a small estate in the province of Tula…. With good management, it might yield–and, in fact, it could not fail to yield–five or six thousand … and if I go into the government service, I can easily get a salary of two thousand a year.’
‘Into the service in Russia?’ cried Frau Lenore, ‘Then I must part with Gemma!’
‘One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,’ Sanin put in; ‘I have some connections…. There one’s duties lie abroad. Or else, this is what one might do, and that’s much the best of all: sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.’ Sanin was aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since the ‘practical’ conversation began, kept getting up, walking about the room, and sitting down again–he looked at her–and no obstacle existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the best way, if only she were not troubled!
‘Herr Klüber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the improvement of the shop,’ Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
‘Mother! for mercy’s sake, mother!’ cried Gemma in Italian.
‘These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,’ Frau Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840, all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.) When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain satisfaction. ‘But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.’
Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary … but that he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before his marriage–(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully, Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew dreamy)–and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own country to sell his estate … in any case he would bring back the money needed.
‘I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for a cape,’ said Frau Lenore. ‘They’re wonderfully good, I hear, and wonderfully cheap!’
‘Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and for Gemma!’ cried Sanin.
‘And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,’ Emil interposed, putting his head in from the next room.
‘Very well, I will bring it you … and some slippers for Pantaleone.’
‘Come, that’s nonsense, nonsense,’ observed Frau Lenore. ‘We are talking now of serious matters. But there’s another point,’ added the practical lady. ‘You talk of selling your estate. But how will you do that? Will you sell your peasants then, too?’
Sanin felt something like a stab at his heart. He remembered that in a conversation with Signora Roselli and her daughter about serfdom, which, in his own words, aroused his deepest indignation, he had repeatedly assured them that never on any account would he sell his peasants, as he regarded such a sale as an immoral act.
‘I will try and sell my estate to some man I know something of,’ he articulated, not without faltering, ‘or perhaps the peasants themselves will want to buy their freedom.’
‘That would be best of all,’ Frau Lenore agreed. ‘Though indeed selling live people …’
‘_Barbari_!’ grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.
‘It’s a bad business!’ Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. ‘Well, never mind!’ he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely softened at last, and already called Sanin ‘Dimitri,’ shook her finger affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations, because ‘that too is very important’; asked him to describe the ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church, and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold crown on her head.
‘She’s as lovely as a queen,’ she murmured with motherly pride,’ indeed there’s no queen like her in the world!’
‘There is no one like Gemma in the world!’ Sanin chimed in.
‘Yes; that’s why she is Gemma!’ (Gemma, as every one knows, means in Italian a precious stone.)
Gemma flew to kiss her mother…. It seemed as if only then she breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her dropped from off her soul.
Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell something in the shop, as he had done a few days before…. ‘I have a full right to do so now!’ he felt. ‘Why, I am one of the family now!’ And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.
At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached him. ‘And he was his second!’ Pantaleone gave her a glance from under his brows.
Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. ‘Dimitri, don’t be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are not to consider yourself bound …’
He did not let her go on….
Gemma turned away her face. ‘And as for what mamma spoke of, do you remember, the difference of our religion–see here!…’
She snatched the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord, gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.
‘If I am yours, your faith is my faith!’ Sanin’s eyes were still wet when he went back with Gemma into the house.
By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even played a game of _tresette_.
XXXI
Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the question, the vital, fateful question–how he could dispose of his estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible–disturbed his rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project ready prepared and not without.
What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned round…. A broad, yellowish face, little pig’s eyes, with white lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish, and mistrustful–yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!
‘Isn’t my lucky star working for me again?’ flashed through Sanin’s mind.
‘Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?’
The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoarse falsetto, ‘Dimitri Sanin?’
‘That’s me!’ cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov’s hands; arrayed in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as before beside his barrel-shaped legs. ‘Have you been here long? Where have you come from? Where are you stopping?’
‘I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,’ Polozov replied in deliberate tones, ‘to do some shopping for my wife, and I’m going back to Wiesbaden to-day.’
‘Oh, yes! You’re married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!’
Polozov turned his eyes away. ‘Yes, they say so.’
Sanin laughed. ‘I see you’re just the same … as phlegmatic as you were at school.’
‘Why should I be different?’
‘And they do say,’ Sanin added with special emphasis on the word ‘do,’ ‘that your wife is very rich.’
‘They say that too.’
‘Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that point?’
‘I don’t meddle, my dear Dimitri … Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!–in my wife’s affairs.’
‘You don’t meddle? Not in any of her affairs?’
Polozov again shifted his eyes. ‘Not in any, my boy. She does as she likes, and so do I.’
‘Where are you going now?’ Sanin inquired.
‘I’m not going anywhere just now; I’m standing in the street and talking to you; but when we’ve finished talking, I’m going back to my hotel, and am going to have lunch.’
‘Would you care for my company?’
‘You mean at lunch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Delighted, it’s much pleasanter to eat in company. You’re not a great talker, are you?’
‘I think not.’
‘So much the better.’
Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin speculated–Polozov’s lips were glued together, again he snorted heavily, and waddled along in silence–Sanin speculated in what way had this booby succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had passed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne the nickname ‘driveller.’ It was marvellous!
‘But if his wife is very rich, they say she’s the daughter of some sort of a contractor, won’t she buy my estate? Though he does say he doesn’t interfere in any of his wife’s affairs, that passes belief, really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not try? Perhaps, it’s all my lucky star…. Resolved! I’ll have a try!’
Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. ‘All purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!’ (that was the name of the wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair, groaned, ‘Oh, the heat!’ and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon. ‘And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o’clock sharp!’
The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.
Polozov unbuttoned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the conversation on himself.
Sanin understood his companion’s disposition of mind, and so he did not burden him with questions; he restricted himself to the most essential. He learnt that he had been for two years in the service (in the Uhlans! how nice he must have looked in the short uniform jacket!) that he had married three years before, and had now been for two years abroad with his wife, ‘who is now undergoing some sort of cure at Wiesbaden,’ and was then going to Paris. On his side too, Sanin did not enlarge much on his past life and his plans; he went straight to the principal point–that is, he began talking of his intention of selling his estate.
Polozov listened to him in silence, his eyes straying from time to time to the door, by which the luncheon was to appear. The luncheon did appear at last. The head-waiter, accompanied by two other attendants, brought in several dishes under silver covers.
‘Is the property in the Tula province?’ said Polozov, seating himself at the table, and tucking a napkin into his shirt collar.
‘Yes.’
‘In the Efremovsky district … I know it.’
‘Do you know my place, Aleksyevka?’ Sanin asked, sitting down too at the table.
‘Yes, I know it.’ Polozov thrust in his mouth a piece of omelette with truffles. ‘Maria Nikolaevna, my wife, has an estate in that neighbourhood…. Uncork that bottle, waiter! You’ve a good piece of land, only your peasants have cut down the timber. Why are you selling it?’
‘I want the money, my friend. I would sell it cheap. Come, you might as well buy it … by the way.’
Polozov gulped down a glass of wine, wiped his lips with the napkin, and again set to work chewing slowly and noisily.
‘Oh,’ he enunciated at last…. ‘I don’t go in for buying estates; I’ve no capital. Pass the butter. Perhaps my wife now would buy it. You talk to her about it. If you don’t ask too much, she’s not above thinking of that…. What asses these Germans are, really! They can’t cook fish. What could be simpler, one wonders? And yet they go on about “uniting the Fatherland.” Waiter, take away that beastly stuff!’
‘Does your wife really manage … business matters herself?’ Sanin inquired.
‘Yes. Try the cutlets–they’re good. I can recommend them. I’ve told you already, Dimitri Pavlovitch, I don’t interfere in any of my wife’s concerns, and I tell you so again.’
Polozov went on munching.
‘H’m…. But how can I have a talk with her, Ippolit Sidorovitch?’
‘It’s very simple, Dimitri Pavlovitch. Go to Wiesbaden. It’s not far from here. Waiter, haven’t you any English mustard? No? Brutes! Only don’t lose any time. We’re starting the day after to-morrow. Let me pour you out a glass of wine; it’s wine with a bouquet–no vinegary stuff.’
Polozov’s face was flushed and animated; it was never animated but when he was eating–or drinking.
‘Really, I don’t know, how that could be managed,’ Sanin muttered.
‘But what makes you in such a hurry about it all of a sudden?’
‘There is a reason for being in a hurry, brother.’
‘And do you need a lot of money?’
‘Yes, a lot. I … how can I tell you? I propose … getting married.’
Polozov set the glass he had been lifting to his lips on the table.
‘Getting married!’ he articulated in a voice thick with astonishment, and he folded his podgy hands on his stomach. ‘So suddenly?’
‘Yes … soon.’
‘Your intended is in Russia, of course?’
‘No, not in Russia.’
‘Where then?’
‘Here in Frankfort.’
‘And who is she?’
‘A German; that is, no–an Italian. A resident here.’
‘With a fortune?’
‘No, without a fortune.’
‘Then I suppose your love is very ardent?’
‘How absurd you are! Yes, very ardent.’
‘And it’s for that you must have money?’
‘Well, yes … yes, yes.’
Polozov gulped down his wine, rinsed his mouth, and washed his hands, carefully wiped them on the napkin, took out and lighted a cigar. Sanin watched him in silence.
‘There’s one means,’ Polozov grunted at last, throwing his head back, and blowing out the smoke in a thin ring. ‘Go to my wife. If she likes, she can take all the bother off your hands.’
‘But how can I see your wife? You say you are starting the day after to-morrow?’
Polozov closed his eyes.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said at last, rolling the cigar in his lips, and sighing. ‘Go home, get ready as quick as you can, and come here. At one o’clock I am going, there’s plenty of room in my carriage. I’ll take you with me. That’s the best plan. And now I’m going to have a nap. I must always have a nap, brother, after a meal. Nature demands it, and I won’t go against it And don’t you disturb me.’
Sanin thought and thought, and suddenly raised his head; he had made up his mind.
‘Very well, agreed, and thank you. At half-past twelve I’ll be here, and we’ll go together to Wiesbaden. I hope your wife won’t be angry….’
But Polozov was already snoring. He muttered, ‘Don’t disturb me!’ gave a kick, and fell asleep, like a baby.
Sanin once more scanned his clumsy figure, his head, his neck, his upturned chin, round as an apple, and going out of the hotel, set off with rapid strides to the Rosellis’ shop. He had to let Gemma know.
XXXII
He found her in the shop with her mother. Frau Lenore was stooping down, measuring with a big folding foot-rule the space between the windows. On seeing Sanin, she stood up, and greeted him cheerfully, though with a shade of embarrassment.
‘What you said yesterday,’ she began, ‘has set my head in a whirl with ideas as to how we could improve our shop. Here, I fancy we might put a couple of cupboards with shelves of looking-glass. You know, that’s the fashion nowadays. And then …’
‘Excellent, excellent,’ Sanin broke in, ‘we must think it all over…. But come here, I want to tell you something.’ He took Frau Lenpre and Gemma by the arm, and led them into the next room. Frau Lenore was alarmed, and the foot-rule slipped out of her hands. Gemma too was almost frightened, but she took an intent look at Sanin, and was reassured. His face, though preoccupied, expressed at the same time keen self-confidence and determination. He asked both the women to sit down, while he remained standing before them, and gesticulating with his hands and ruffling up his hair, he told them all his story; his meeting with Polozov, his proposed expedition to Wiesbaden, the chance of selling the estate. ‘Imagine my happiness,’ he cried in conclusion: ‘things have taken such a turn that I may even, perhaps, not have to go to Russia! And we can have our wedding much sooner than I had anticipated!’
‘When must you go?’ asked Gemma.
‘To-day, in an hour’s time; my friend has ordered a carriage–he will take me.’
‘You will write to us?’
‘At once! directly I have had a talk with this lady, I will write.’
‘This lady, you say, is very rich?’ queried the practical Frau Lenore.
‘Exceedingly rich! her father was a millionaire, and he left everything to her.’
‘Everything–to her alone? Well, that’s so much the better for you. Only mind, don’t let your property go too cheap! Be sensible and firm. Don’t let yourself be carried away! I understand your wishing to be Gemma’s husband as soon as possible … but prudence before everything! Don’t forget: the better price you get for your estate, the more there will be for you two, and for your children.’
Gemma turned away, and Sanin gave another wave of his hand. ‘You can rely on my prudence, Frau Lenore! Indeed, I shan’t do any bargaining with her. I shall tell her the fair price; if she’ll give it–good; if not, let her go.’
‘Do you know her–this lady?’ asked Gemma.
‘I have never seen her.’
‘And when will you come back?’
‘If our negotiations come to nothing–the day after to-morrow; if they turn out favourably, perhaps I may have to stay a day or two longer. In any case I shall not linger a minute beyond what’s necessary. I am leaving my heart here, you know! But I have said what I had to say to you, and I must run home before setting off too…. Give me your hand for luck, Frau Lenore–that’s what we always do in Russia.’
‘The right or the left?’
‘The left, it’s nearer the heart. I shall reappear the day after to-morrow with my shield or on it! Something tells me I shall come back in triumph! Good-bye, my good dear ones….’
He embraced and kissed Frau Lenore, but he asked Gemma to follow him into her room–for just a minute–as he must tell her something of great importance. He simply wanted to say good-bye to her alone. Frau Lenore saw that, and felt no curiosity as to the matter of such great importance.
Sanin had never been in Gemma’s room before. All the magic of love, all its fire and rapture and sweet terror, seemed to flame up and burst into his soul, directly he crossed its sacred threshold…. He cast a look of tenderness about him, fell at the sweet girl’s feet and pressed his face against her waist….
‘You are mine,’ she whispered: ‘you will be back soon?’
‘I am yours. I will come back,’ he declared, catching his breath.
‘I shall be longing for you back, my dear one!’
A few instants later Sanin was running along the street to his lodging. He did not even notice that Pantaleone, all dishevelled, had darted out of the shop-door after him, and was shouting something to him and was shaking, as though in menace, his lifted hand.
* * * * *
Exactly at a quarter to one Sanin presented himself before Polozov. The carriage with four horses was already standing at the hotel gates. On seeing Sanin, Polozov merely commented, ‘Oh! you’ve made up your mind?’ and putting on his hat, cloak, and over-shoes, and stuffing cotton-wool into his ears, though it was summer-time, went out on to the steps. The waiters, by his directions, disposed all his numerous purchases in the inside of the carriage, lined the place where he was to sit with silk cushions, bags, and bundles, put a hamper of provisions for his feet to rest on, and tied a trunk on to the box. Polozov paid with a liberal hand, and supported by the deferential door-keeper, whose face was still respectful, though he was unseen behind him, he climbed gasping into the carriage, sat down, disarranged everything about him thoroughly, took out and lighted a cigar, and only then extended a finger to Sanin, as though to say, ‘Get in, you too!’ Sanin placed himself beside him. Polozov sent orders by the door-keeper to the postillion to drive carefully–if he wanted drinks; the carriage steps grated, the doors slammed, and the carriage rolled off.
XXXIII
It takes less than an hour in these days by rail from Frankfort to Wiesbaden; at that time the extra post did it in three hours. They changed horses five times. Part of the time Polozov dozed and part of the time he simply shook from side to side, holding a cigar in his teeth; he talked very little; he did not once look out of the window; picturesque views did not interest them; he even announced that ‘nature was the death of him!’ Sanin did not speak either, nor did he admire the scenery; he had no thought for it. He was all absorbed in reflections and memories. At the stations Polozov paid with exactness, took the time by his watch, and tipped the postillions–more or less–according to their zeal. When they had gone half way, he took two oranges out of the hamper of edibles, and choosing out the better, offered the other to Sanin. Sanin looked steadily at his companion, and suddenly burst out laughing.
‘What are you laughing at?’ the latter inquired, very carefully peeling his orange with his short white nails.
‘What at?’ repeated Sanin. ‘Why, at our journey together.’
‘What about it?’ Polozov inquired again, dropping into his mouth one of the longitudinal sections into which an orange parts.
‘It’s so very strange. Yesterday I must confess I thought no more of you than of the Emperor of China, and to-day I’m driving with you to sell my estate to your wife, of whom, too, I have not the slightest idea.’
‘Anything may happen,’ responded Polozov. ‘When you’ve lived a bit longer, you won’t be surprised at anything. For instance, can you fancy me riding as an orderly officer? But I did, and the Grand Duke Mihail Pavlovitch gave the order, ‘Trot! let him trot, that fat cornet! Trot now! Look sharp!’
Sanin scratched behind his ear.
‘Tell me, please, Ippolit Sidorovitch, what is your wife like? What is her character? It’s very necessary for me to know that, you see.’
‘It was very well for him to shout, “Trot!”‘ Polozov went on with sudden vehemence, ‘But me! how about me? I thought to myself, “You can take your honours and epaulettes–and leave me in peace!” But … you asked about my wife? What my wife is? A person like any one else. Don’t wear your heart upon your sleeve with her–she doesn’t like that. The great thing is to talk a lot to her … something for her to laugh at. Tell her about your love, or something … but make it more amusing, you know.’
‘How more amusing?’
‘Oh, you told me, you know, that you were in love, wanting to get married. Well, then, describe that.’
Sanin was offended. ‘What do you find laughable in that?’