The Torrents Of Spring

muttered something unintelligible, bowed, and walked back to his
friends. They greeted him with a laugh, and faint applause.
Herr Klüber rose spasmodically from his seat, drew himself up to his
full height, and putting on his hat pronounced with dignity, but not too
loud, ‘Unheard of! Unheard of! Unheard of impertinence!’ and at once
calling up the waiter, in a severe voice asked for the bill … more than
that, ordered the carriage to be put to, adding that it was impossible for
respectable people to frequent the establishment if they were exposed to
insult! At those words Gemma, who still sat in her place without stirring
– her bosom was heaving violently – Gemma raised her eyes to Herr
Klüber … and she gazed as intently, with the same expression at him as
at the officer. Emil was simply shaking with rage.
‘Get up, mein Fräulein,’ Klüber admonished her with the same severity,
‘it is not proper for you to remain here. We will go inside, in the tavern!’
Gemma rose in silence; he offered her his arm, she gave him hers, and
he walked into the tavern with a majestic step, which became, with his
whole bearing, more majestic and haughty the farther he got from the
place where they had dined. Poor Emil dragged himself after them.
But while Herr Klüber was settling up with the waiter, to whom, by
way of punishment, he gave not a single kreutzer for himself, Sanin with
rapid steps approached the table at which the officers were sitting, and
addressing Gemma’s assailant, who was at that instant offering her rose
to his companions in turns to smell, he uttered very distinctly in French,
‘What you have just done, sir, is conduct unworthy of an honest man,
unworthy of the uniform you wear, and I have come to tell you you are
an ill-bred cur!’ The young man leaped on to his feet, but another officer,
rather older, checked him with a gesture, made him sit down, and turning
to Sanin asked him also in French, ‘Was he a relation, brother, or betrothed
of the girl?’
‘I am nothing to her at all,’ cried Sanin, ‘I am a Russian, but I cannot
look on at such insolence with indifference; but here is my card and my
address; monsieur l’officier can find me.’
As he uttered these words, Sanin threw his visiting-card on the table,
and at the same moment hastily snatched Gemma’s rose, which one of
the officers sitting at the table had dropped into his plate. The young
man was again on the point of jumping up from the table, but his companion
again checked him, saying, ‘Dönhof, be quiet! Dönhof, sit still.’
Then he got up himself, and putting his hand to the peak of his cap, with
a certain shade of respectfulness in his voice and manner, told Sanin that
to-morrow morning an officer of the regiment would have the honour of
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