‘What are you doing here?’ Sanin asked
him sternly. ’Why aren’t you at home?’
‘Let ... let me come with you,’ faltered
Emil in a trembling voice, and he clasped his hands.
His teeth were chattering as in a fever. ’I
won’t get in your way—only take me.’
‘If you feel the very slightest affection or
respect for me,’ said Sanin, ’you will
go at once home or to Herr Klueber’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 e 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!
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.
