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The Torrents Of Spring

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XXIII<br />

He slept for some hours without waking. <strong>The</strong>n he began to dream that<br />

he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing<br />

him was Herr Klüber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this parrot<br />

was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one, one!<br />

‘One … one … one!’ he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened his<br />

eyes, raised his head … some one was knocking at his door.<br />

‘Come in!’ called Sanin.<br />

<strong>The</strong> waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished<br />

to see him.<br />

‘Gemma!’ flashed into his head … but the lady turned out to be her<br />

mother, Frau Lenore.<br />

Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to<br />

cry.<br />

‘What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?’ began Sanin, sitting<br />

beside her and softly touching her hand. ‘What has happened? calm<br />

yourself, I entreat you.’<br />

‘Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very … very miserable!’<br />

‘You are miserable?’<br />

‘Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like<br />

thunder from a clear sky … ’<br />

She caught her breath.<br />

‘But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?’<br />

‘No, thank you.’ Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief<br />

and began to cry with renewed energy. ‘I know all, you see! All!’<br />

‘All? that is to say?’<br />

‘Everything that took place to-day! And the cause … I know that too!<br />

You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination<br />

of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to<br />

Soden … quite right!’ (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort on the<br />

day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had foreseen<br />

‘all’ even then.) ‘I have come to you as to an honourable man, as to a<br />

friend, though I only saw you for the first time five days ago… . But you<br />

know I am a widow, a lonely woman… . My daughter … ’<br />

Tears choked Frau Lenore’s voice. Sanin did not know what to think.<br />

‘Your daughter?’ he repeated.<br />

‘My daughter, Gemma,’ broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore,<br />

behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, ‘informed me to-day that she<br />

would not marry Herr Klüber, and that I must refuse him!’<br />

57

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