The Torrents of Spring | Page 8

journey before him when the clock struck ten. He leaped
up from his seat as though he had been stung.
'What is the matter?' inquired Frau Lenore.
'Why, I had to start for Berlin to-night, and I have taken a place in the
diligence!'
'And when does the diligence start?'
'At half-past ten!'

'Well, then, you won't catch it now,' observed Gemma; 'you must stay ...
and I will go on reading.'
'Have you paid the whole fare or only given a deposit?' Frau Lenore
queried.
'The whole fare!' Sanin said dolefully with a gloomy face.
Gemma looked at him, half closed her eyes, and laughed, while her
mother scolded her:
'The young gentleman has paid away his money for nothing, and you
laugh!'
'Never mind,' answered Gemma; 'it won't ruin him, and we will try and
amuse him. Will you have some lemonade?'
Sanin drank a glass of lemonade, Gemma took up Malz once more; and
all went merrily again.
The clock struck twelve. Sanin rose to take leave.
'You must stay some days now in Frankfort,' said Gemma: 'why should
you hurry away? It would be no nicer in any other town.' She paused. 'It
wouldn't, really,' she added with a smile. Sanin made no reply, and
reflected that considering the emptiness of his purse, he would have no
choice about remaining in Frankfort till he got an answer from a friend
in Berlin, to whom he proposed writing for money.
'Yes, do stay,' urged Frau Lenore too. 'We will introduce you to Mr.
Karl Klüber, who is engaged to Gemma. He could not come to-day, as
he was very busy at his shop ... you must have seen the biggest draper's
and silk mercer's shop in the Zeile. Well, he is the manager there. But
he will be delighted to call on you himself.'
Sanin--heaven knows why--was slightly disconcerted by this piece of
information. 'He's a lucky fellow, that fiancé!' flashed across his mind.
He looked at Gemma, and fancied he detected an ironical look in her

eyes. He began saying good-bye.
'Till to-morrow? Till to-morrow, isn't it?' queried Frau Lenore.
'Till to-morrow!' Gemma declared in a tone not of interrogation, but of
affirmation, as though it could not be otherwise.
'Till to-morrow!' echoed Sanin.
Emil, Pantaleone, and the poodle Tartaglia accompanied him to the
corner of the street. Pantaleone could not refrain from expressing his
displeasure at Gemma's reading.
'She ought to be ashamed! She mouths and whines, una caricatura! She
ought to represent Merope or Clytemnaestra--something grand,
tragic--and she apes some wretched German woman! I can do that ...
merz, kerz, smerz,' he went on in a hoarse voice poking his face forward,
and brandishing his fingers. Tartaglia began barking at him, while Emil
burst out laughing. The old man turned sharply back.
Sanin went back to the White Swan (he had left his things there in the
public hall) in a rather confused frame of mind. All the talk he had had
in French, German, and Italian was ringing in his ears.
'Engaged!' he whispered as he lay in bed, in the modest apartment
assigned to him. 'And what a beauty! But what did I stay for?'
Next day he sent a letter to his friend in Berlin.

VIII
He had not finished dressing, when a waiter announced the arrival of
two gentlemen. One of them turned out to be Emil; the other, a
good-looking and well-grown young man, with a handsome face, was
Herr Karl Klüber, the betrothed of the lovely Gemma.
One may safely assume that at that time in all Frankfort, there was not

in a single shop a manager as civil, as decorous, as dignified, and as
affable as Herr Klüber. The irreproachable perfection of his get-up was
on a level with the dignity of his deportment, with the elegance--a little
affected and stiff, it is true, in the English style (he had spent two years
in England)--but still fascinating, elegance of his manners! It was clear
from the first glance that this handsome, rather severe, excellently
brought-up and superbly washed young man was accustomed to obey
his superior and to command his inferior, and that behind the counter of
his shop he must infallibly inspire respect even in his customers! Of his
supernatural honesty there could never be a particle of doubt: one had
but to look at his stiffly starched collars! And his voice, it appeared,
was just what one would expect; deep, and of a self-confident richness,
but not too loud, with positively a certain caressing note in its timbre.
Such a voice was peculiarly fitted to give orders to assistants under his
control: 'Show the crimson Lyons velvet!' or, 'Hand the lady a chair!'
Herr Klüber began with introducing himself; as he did so, he bowed
with such