‘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 Klueber. 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 Klueber’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 Klueber;
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!’
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
