Sanin did not notice how the evening was flying by, and only recollected the 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 Klueber, 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 fiance!' 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.

The Torrents of Spring by Garnett, Constance, 1861-1946, Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich, 1818-1883

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