Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he
did not say where exactly: the reader will readily
conjecture that he made straight for Frankfort.
Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the
fourth day after leaving Petersburg he was there.
He had not visited the place since 1840. The
hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old place
and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as
first class. The Zeile, the principal
street of Frankfort was little changed, but there
was not only no trace of Signora Roselli’s house,
the very street in which it stood had disappeared.
Sanin wandered like a man in a dream about the places
once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the old
buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets
of huge continuous houses and fine villas; even the
public garden, where that last interview with Gemma
had taken place, had so grown up and altered that
Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden.
What was he to do? How and where could he get
information? Thirty years, no little thing! had
passed since those days. No one to whom he applied
had even heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper
advised him to have recourse to the public library,
there, he told him, he would find all the old newspapers,
but what good he would get from that, the hotel-keeper
owned he didn’t see. Sanin in despair made
inquiries about Herr Klueber. That name the hotel-keeper
knew well, but there too no success awaited him.
The elegant shop-manager, after making much noise
in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist,
had speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison....
This piece of news did not, however, occasion Sanin
the slightest regret. He was beginning to feel
that his journey had been rather precipitate....
But, behold, one day, as he was turning over a Frankfort
directory, he came on the name: Von Doenhof,
retired major. He promptly took a carriage and
drove to the address, though why was this Von Doenhof
certain to be that Doenhof, and why even was the right
Doenhof likely to be able to tell him any news of
the Roselli family? No matter, a drowning man
catches at straws.
Sanin found the retired major von Doenhof at home,
and in the grey-haired gentleman who received him
he recognised at once his adversary of bygone days.
Doenhof knew him too, and was positively delighted
to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the
escapades of his youth. Sanin heard from him
that the Roselli family had long, long ago emigrated
to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
merchant; that he, Doenhof, had an acquaintance also
a merchant, who would probably know her husband’s
address, as he did a great deal of business with America.
Sanin begged Doenhof to consult this friend, and,
to his delight, Doenhof brought him the address of
Gemma’s husband, Mr.
Jeremy Slocum, New York,
Broadway, No. 501. Only this address dated from
the year 1863.
