The Torrents Of Spring

‘One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,’ Sanin put in; ‘I
have some connections… . There one’s duties lie abroad. Or else, this is
what one might do, and that’s much the best of all: sell my estate and
employ the sum received for it in some profitable undertaking; for instance,
the improvement of your shop.’ Sanin was aware that he was saying
something absurd, but he was possessed by an incomprehensible
recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since the ‘practical’ conversation
began, kept getting up, walking about the room, and sitting
down again – he looked at her – and no obstacle existed for him, and he
was ready to arrange everything at once in the best way, if only she were
not troubled!
‘Herr Klüber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the improvement
of the shop,’ Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.
‘Mother! for mercy’s sake, mother!’ cried Gemma in Italian.
‘These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,’ Frau
Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to Sanin,
and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia as to marriage,
and whether there were no obstacles to contracting marriages with
Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840, all Germany still remembered
the controversy between the Prussian Government and the
Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.) When Frau Lenore
heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her daughter would herself
become of noble rank, she evinced a certain satisfaction. ‘But, of course,
you will first have to go to Russia?’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.’
Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary … but that he
might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before his marriage
– (he said these words, and his heart ached painfully, Gemma
watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew dreamy) – and
that he would try to take advantage of being in his own country to sell
his estate … in any case he would bring back the money needed.
‘I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for
a cape,’ said Frau Lenore. ‘They’re wonderfully good, I hear, and wonderfully
cheap!’
‘Certainly, with the greatest pleasure, I will bring some for you and for
Gemma!’ cried Sanin.
‘And for me a morocco cap worked in silver,’ Emil interposed, putting
his head in from the next room.
‘Very well, I will bring it you … and some slippers for Pantaleone.’
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