The Torrents Of Spring

XII
It appeared that Gemma was not very fond of Hoffmann, that she even
thought him … tedious! The fantastic, misty northern element in his stories
was too remote from her clear, southern nature. ‘It’s all fairy-tales, all
written for children!’ she declared with some contempt. She was vaguely
conscious, too, of the lack of poetry in Hoffmann. But there was one of
his stories, the title of which she had forgotten, which she greatly liked;
more precisely speaking, it was only the beginning of this story that she
liked; the end she had either not read or had forgotten. The story was
about a young man who in some place, a sort of restaurant perhaps,
meets a girl of striking beauty, a Greek; she is accompanied by a mysterious
and strange, wicked old man. The young man falls in love with the
girl at first sight; she looks at him so mournfully, as though beseeching
him to deliver her… . He goes out for an instant, and, coming back into
the restaurant, finds there neither the girl nor the old man; he rushes off
in pursuit of her, continually comes upon fresh traces of her, follows
them up, and can never by any means come upon her anywhere. The
lovely girl has vanished for him for ever and ever, and he is never able to
forget her imploring glance, and is tortured by the thought that all the
happiness of his life, perhaps, has slipped through his fingers.
Hoffmann does not end his story quite in that way; but so it had taken
shape, so it had remained, in Gemma’s memory.
‘I fancy,’ she said, ‘such meetings and such partings happen oftener in
the world than we suppose.’
Sanin was silent … and soon after he began talking … of Herr Klüber.
It was the first time he had referred to him; he had not once remembered
him till that instant.
Gemma was silent in her turn, and sank into thought, biting the nail of
her forefinger and fixing her eyes away. Then she began to speak in
praise of her betrothed, alluded to the excursion he had planned for the
next day, and, glancing swiftly at Sanin, was silent again.
Sanin did not know on what subject to turn the conversation.
Emil ran in noisily and waked Frau Lenore … Sanin was relieved by
his appearance.
Frau Lenore got up from her low chair. Pantaleone came in and announced
that dinner was ready. The friend of the family, ex-singer, and
servant also performed the duties of cook.
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