The Torrents of Spring
will go into the next room, and you can make arrangements with him.
Believe me I shall never forget your kindness, and I thank you from my
heart.”
“Honour before everything!” answered Pantaleone, and he sank into an
arm-chair, without waiting for Sanin to ask him to sit down. “If that
_ferroflucto spitchebubbio_,” he said, passing from French into
Italian, “if that counter-jumper Klüberio could not appreciate his
obvious duty or was afraid, so much the worse for him!… A cheap soul,
and that’s all about it!… As for the conditions of the duel, I am your
second, and your interests are sacred to me!… When I lived in Padua
there was a regiment of the white dragoons stationed there, and I was
very intimate with many of the officers!… I was quite familiar with
their whole code. And I used often to converse on these subjects with
your principe Tarbuski too…. Is this second to come soon?”
“I am expecting him every minute—and here he comes,” added Sanin,
looking into the street.
Pantaleone got up, looked at his watch, straightened his topknot of
hair, and hurriedly stuffed into his shoe an end of tape which was
sticking out below his trouser-leg, and the young sub-lieutenant came
in, as red and embarrassed as ever.
Sanin presented the seconds to each other. “M. Richter,
sous-lieutenant, M. Cippatola, artiste!” The sub-lieutenant was
slightly disconcerted by the old man’s appearance … Oh, what would he
have said had any one whispered to him at that instant that the
“artist” presented to him was also employed in the culinary art! But
Pantaleone assumed an air as though taking part in the preliminaries of
duels was for him the most everyday affair: probably he was assisted at
this juncture by the recollections of his theatrical career, and he
played the part of second simply as a part. Both he and the
sub-lieutenant were silent for a little.
“Well? Let us come to business!” Pantaleone spoke first, playing with
his cornelian seal.
“By all means,” responded the sub-lieutenant, “but … the presence of
one of the principals …”
“I will leave you at once, gentlemen,” cried Sanin, and with a bow he
went away into the bedroom and closed the door after him.
He flung himself on the bed and began thinking of Gemma … but the
conversation of the seconds reached him through the shut door. It was
conducted in the French language; both maltreated it mercilessly, each
after his own fashion. Pantaleone again alluded to the dragoons in
Padua, and Principe Tarbuski; the sub-lieutenant to “_exghizes
léchères_” and “_goups de bistolet à l’amiaple_.” But the old man would
not even hear of any _exghizes_! To Sanin’s horror, he suddenly
proceeded to talk of a certain young lady, an innocent maiden, whose
little finger was worth more than all the officers in the world …
(_oune zeune damigella innoucenta, qu’a elle sola dans soun péti doa
vale piu que tout le zouffissié del mondo!_), and repeated several
times with heat: “It’s shameful! it’s shameful!” (_E ouna onta, ouna
onta_!) The sub-lieutenant at first made him no reply, but presently an
angry quiver could be heard in the young man’s voice, and he observed
that he had not come there to listen to sermonising.
“At your age it is always a good thing to hear the truth!” cried
Pantaleone.
The debate between the seconds several times became stormy; it lasted
over an hour, and was concluded at last on the following conditions:
“Baron von Dönhof and M. de Sanin to meet the next day at ten o’clock
in a small wood near Hanau, at the distance of twenty paces; each to
have the right to fire twice at a signal given by the seconds, the
pistols to be single-triggered and not rifle-barrelled.” Herr von
Richter withdrew, and Pantaleone solemnly opened the bedroom door, and
after communicating the result of their deliberations, cried again:
“_Bravo Russo! Bravo giovanotto!_ You will be victor!”
A few minutes later they both set off to the Rosellis’ shop. Sanin, as
a preliminary measure, had exacted a promise from Pantaleone to keep
the affair of the duel a most profound secret. In reply, the old man
had merely held up his finger, and half closing his eyes, whispered
twice over, _Segredezza_! He was obviously in good spirits, and even
walked with a freer step. All these unusual incidents, unpleasant
though they might be, carried him vividly back to the time when he
himself both received and gave challenges—only, it is true, on the
stage. Baritones, as we all know, have a great deal of strutting and
fuming to do in their parts.
XIX
Emil ran out to meet Sanin—he had been watching for his arrival over an
hour—and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew nothing
of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must not even
hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klüber’s shop again!…
but that he wouldn’t go there, but would hide somewhere! Communicating
all this information in a few seconds, he suddenly fell on Sanin’s
shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed away down the street.
Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say something and could not. Her
lips were trembling a little, while her eyes were half-closed and
turned away. He made haste to soothe her by the assurance that the
whole affair had ended … in utter nonsense.
“Has no one been to see you to-day?” she asked.
“A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we … we came to
the most satisfactory conclusion.”
Gemma went back behind the counter.
“She does not believe me!” he thought … he went into the next room,
however, and there found Frau Lenore.
Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of
mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time
that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to
entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids
were red and swollen.
“What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You’ve never been crying, surely?”
“Oh!” she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her
daughter was. “Don’t speak of it … aloud.”
“But what have you been crying for?”
“Ah, M’sieu Sanin, I don’t know myself what for!”
“No one has hurt your feelings?”
“Oh no!… I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni
Battista … of my youth … Then how quickly it had all passed away. I
have grown old, my friend, and I can’t reconcile myself to that anyhow.
I feel I’m just the same as I was … but old age—it’s here! it is here!”
Tears came into Frau Lenore’s eyes. “You look at me, I see, and
wonder…. But you will get old too, my friend, and will find out how
bitter it is!”
Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own
youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring
that she was fishing for compliments … but she quite seriously begged
him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a
sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one
has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game of
tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed at
once and seemed to get more cheerful.
Sanin played with her until dinner-time and after dinner Pantaleone too
took a hand in the game. Never had his topknot hung so low over his
forehead, never had his chin retreated so far into his cravat! Every
movement was accompanied by such intense solemnity that as one looked
at him the thought involuntarily arose, “What secret is that man
guarding with such determination?” But _segredezza! segredezza!_
During the whole of that day he tried in every possible way to show the
profoundest respect for Sanin; at table, passing by the ladies, he
solemnly and sedately handed the dishes first to him; when they were at
cards he intentionally gave him the game; he announced, apropos of
nothing at all, that the Russians were the most great-hearted, brave,
and resolute people in the world!
“Ah, you old flatterer!” Sanin thought to himself.
And he was not so much surprised at Signora Roselli’s unexpected state
of mind, as at the way her daughter behaved to him. It was not that she
avoided him … on the contrary she sat continually a little distance
from him, listened to what he said, and looked at him; but she
absolutely declined to get into conversation with him, and directly he
began talking to her, she softly rose from her place, and went out for
some instants. Then she came in again, and again seated herself in some
corner, and sat without stirring, seeming meditative and perplexed …
perplexed above all. Frau Lenore herself noticed at last, that she was
not as usual, and asked her twice what was the matter.
“Nothing,” answered Gemma; “you know I am sometimes like this.”
“That is true,” her mother assented.
So passed all that long day, neither gaily nor drearily—neither
cheerfully nor sadly. Had Gemma been different—Sanin … who knows?…
might not perhaps have been able to resist the temptation for a little
display—or he might simply have succumbed to melancholy at the
possibility of a separation for ever…. But as he did not once succeed
in getting a word with Gemma, he was obliged to confine himself to
striking minor chords on the piano for a quarter of an hour before
evening coffee.
Emil came home late, and to avoid questions about Herr Klüber, beat a
hasty retreat. The time came for Sanin too to retire.
He began saying good-bye to Gemma. He recollected for some reason
Lensky’s parting from Olga in _Oniegin_. He pressed her hand warmly,
and tried to get a look at her face, but she turned a little away and
released her fingers.
XX
It was bright starlight when he came out on the steps. What multitudes
of stars, big and little, yellow, red, blue and white were scattered
over the sky! They seemed all flashing, swarming, twinkling
unceasingly. There was no moon in the sky, but without it every object
could be clearly discerned in the half-clear, shadowless twilight.
Sanin walked down the street to the end … He did not want to go home at
once; he felt a desire to wander about a little in the fresh air. He
turned back and had hardly got on a level with the house, where was the
Rosellis’ shop, when one of the windows looking out on the street,
suddenly creaked and opened; in its square of blackness—there was no
light in the room—appeared a woman’s figure, and he heard his
name—“Monsieur Dimitri!”
He rushed at once up to the window … Gemma! She was leaning with her
elbows on the window-sill, bending forward.
“Monsieur Dimitri,” she began in a cautious voice, “I have been wanting
all day long to give you something … but I could not make up my mind
to; and just now, seeing you, quite unexpectedly again, I thought that
it seems it is fated” …
Gemma was forced to stop at this word. She could not go on; something
extraordinary happened at that instant.
All of a sudden, in the midst of the profound stillness, over the
perfectly unclouded sky, there blew such a violent blast of wind, that
the very earth seemed shaking underfoot, the delicate starlight seemed
quivering and trembling, the air went round in a whirlwind. The wind,
not cold, but hot, almost sultry, smote against the trees, the roof of
the house, its walls, and the street; it instantaneously snatched off
Sanin’s hat, crumpled up and tangled Gemma’s curls. Sanin’s head was on
a level with the window-sill; he could not help clinging close to it,
and Gemma clutched hold of his shoulders with both hands, and pressed
her bosom against his head. The roar, the din, and the rattle lasted
about a minute…. Like a flock of huge birds the revelling whirlwind
darted revelling away. A profound stillness reigned once more.
Sanin raised his head and saw above him such an exquisite, scared,