The Torrents of Spring Part 14

'That would be best of all,' Frau Lenore agreed. 'Though indeed selling live people ...'

'_Barbari_!' grumbled Pantaleone, who showed himself behind Emil in the doorway, shook his topknot, and vanished.

'It's a bad business!' Sanin thought to himself, and stole a look at Gemma. She seemed not to have heard his last words. 'Well, never mind!' he thought again. In this way the practical talk continued almost uninterruptedly till dinner-time. Frau Lenore was completely softened at last, and already called Sanin 'Dimitri,' shook her finger affectionately at him, and promised she would punish him for his treachery. She asked many and minute questions about his relations, because 'that too is very important'; asked him to describe the ceremony of marriage as performed by the ritual of the Russian Church, and was in raptures already at Gemma in a white dress, with a gold crown on her head.

'She's as lovely as a queen,' she murmured with motherly pride,'

indeed there's no queen like her in the world!'

'There is no one like Gemma in the world!' Sanin chimed in.

'Yes; that's why she is Gemma!' (Gemma, as every one knows, means in Italian a precious stone.)

Gemma flew to kiss her mother.... It seemed as if only then she breathed freely again, and the load that had been oppressing her dropped from off her soul.

Sanin felt all at once so happy, his heart was filled with such childish gaiety at the thought, that here, after all, the dreams had come true to which he had abandoned himself not long ago in these very rooms, his whole being was in such a turmoil that he went quickly out into the shop. He felt a great desire, come what might, to sell something in the shop, as he had done a few days before.... 'I have a full right to do so now!' he felt. 'Why, I am one of the family now!'

And he actually stood behind the counter, and actually kept shop, that is, sold two little girls, who came in, a pound of sweets, giving them fully two pounds, and only taking half the price from them.

At dinner he received an official position, as betrothed, beside Gemma. Frau Lenore pursued her practical investigations. Emil kept laughing and urging Sanin to take him with him to Russia. It was decided that Sanin should set off in a fortnight. Only Pantaleone showed a somewhat sullen face, so much so that Frau Lenore reproached him. 'And he was his second!' Pantaleone gave her a glance from under his brows.

Gemma was silent almost all the time, but her face had never been lovelier or brighter. After dinner she called Sanin out a minute into the garden, and stopping beside the very garden-seat where she had been sorting the cherries two days before, she said to him. 'Dimitri, don't be angry with me; but I must remind you once more that you are not to consider yourself bound ...'

He did not let her go on....

Gemma turned away her face. 'And as for what mamma spoke of, do you remember, the difference of our religion--see here!...'

She s.n.a.t.c.hed the garnet cross that hung round her neck on a thin cord, gave it a violent tug, snapped the cord, and handed him the cross.

'If I am yours, your faith is my faith!' Sanin's eyes were still wet when he went back with Gemma into the house.

By the evening everything went on in its accustomed way. They even played a game of _tresette_.

x.x.xI

Sanin woke up very early. He found himself at the highest pinnacle of human happiness; but it was not that prevented him from sleeping; the question, the vital, fateful question--how he could dispose of his estate as quickly and as advantageously as possible--disturbed his rest. The most diverse plans were mixed up in his head, but nothing had as yet come out clearly. He went out of the house to get air and freshen himself. He wanted to present himself to Gemma with a project ready prepared and not without.

What was the figure, somewhat ponderous and thick in the legs, but well-dressed, walking in front of him, with a slight roll and waddle in his gait? Where had he seen that head, covered with tufts of flaxen hair, and as it were set right into the shoulders, that soft cushiony back, those plump arms hanging straight down at his sides? Could it be Polozov, his old schoolfellow, whom he had lost sight of for the last five years? Sanin overtook the figure walking in front of him, turned round.... A broad, yellowish face, little pig's eyes, with white lashes and eyebrows, a short flat nose, thick lips that looked glued together, a round smooth chin, and that expression, sour, sluggish, and mistrustful--yes; it was he, it was Ippolit Polozov!

'Isn't my lucky star working for me again?' flashed through Sanin's mind.

'Polozov! Ippolit Sidorovitch! Is it you?'

The figure stopped, raised his diminutive eyes, waited a little, and ungluing his lips at last, brought out in a rather hoa.r.s.e falsetto, 'Dimitri Sanin?'

'That's me!' cried Sanin, and he shook one of Polozov's hands; arrayed in tight kid-gloves of an ashen-grey colour, they hung as lifeless as before beside his barrel-shaped legs. 'Have you been here long? Where have you come from? Where are you stopping?'

'I came yesterday from Wiesbaden,' Polozov replied in deliberate tones, 'to do some shopping for my wife, and I'm going back to Wiesbaden to-day.'

'Oh, yes! You're married, to be sure, and they say, to such a beauty!'

Polozov turned his eyes away. 'Yes, they say so.'

Sanin laughed. 'I see you're just the same ... as phlegmatic as you were at school.'

'Why should I be different?'

'And they do say,' Sanin added with special emphasis on the word 'do,'

'that your wife is very rich.'

'They say that too.'

'Do you mean to say, Ippolit Sidorovitch, you are not certain on that point?'

'I don't meddle, my dear Dimitri ... Pavlovitch? Yes, Pavlovitch!--in my wife's affairs.'

'You don't meddle? Not in any of her affairs?'

Polozov again shifted his eyes. 'Not in any, my boy. She does as she likes, and so do I.'

'Where are you going now?' Sanin inquired.

'I'm not going anywhere just now; I'm standing in the street and talking to you; but when we've finished talking, I'm going back to my hotel, and am going to have lunch.'

'Would you care for my company?'

'You mean at lunch?'

'Yes.'

'Delighted, it's much pleasanter to eat in company. You're not a great talker, are you?'

'I think not.'

'So much the better.'

Polozov went on. Sanin walked beside him. And Sanin speculated--Polozov's lips were glued together, again he snorted heavily, and waddled along in silence--Sanin speculated in what way had this b.o.o.by succeeded in catching a rich and beautiful wife. He was not rich himself, nor distinguished, nor clever; at school he had pa.s.sed for a dull, slow-witted boy, sleepy, and greedy, and had borne the nickname 'driveller.' It was marvellous!

'But if his wife is very rich, they say she's the daughter of some sort of a contractor, won't she buy my estate? Though he does say he doesn't interfere in any of his wife's affairs, that pa.s.ses belief, really! Besides, I will name a moderate, reasonable price! Why not try? Perhaps, it's all my lucky star.... Resolved! I'll have a try!'

Polozov led Sanin to one of the best hotels in Frankfort, in which he was, of course, occupying the best apartments. On the tables and chairs lay piles of packages, cardboard boxes, and parcels. 'All purchases, my boy, for Maria Nikolaevna!' (that was the name of the wife of Ippolit Sidorovitch). Polozov dropped into an arm-chair, groaned, 'Oh, the heat!' and loosened his cravat. Then he rang up the head-waiter, and ordered with intense care a very lavish luncheon.

'And at one, the carriage is to be ready! Do you hear, at one o'clock sharp!'

The head-waiter obsequiously bowed, and cringingly withdrew.

Polozov unb.u.t.toned his waistcoat. From the very way in which he raised his eyebrows, gasped, and wrinkled up his nose, one could see that talking would be a great labour to him, and that he was waiting in some trepidation to see whether Sanin was going to oblige him to use his tongue, or whether he would take the task of keeping up the conversation on himself.