Malz was a writer flourishing at Frankfort about 1830, whose short
comedies, written in a light vein in the local dialect, hit off local
Frankfort types with bright and amusing, though not deep, humour. It
turned out that Gemma really did read excellently—quite like an actress
in fact. She indicated each personage, and sustained the character
capitally, making full use of the talent of mimicry she had inherited
with her Italian blood; she had no mercy on her soft voice or her
lovely face, and when she had to represent some old crone in her
dotage, or a stupid burgomaster, she made the drollest grimaces,
screwing up her eyes, wrinkling up her nose, lisping, squeaking…. She
did not herself laugh during the reading; but when her audience (with
the exception of Pantaleone: he had walked off in indignation so soon
as the conversation turned _o quel ferroflucto Tedesco_) interrupted
her by an outburst of unanimous laughter, she dropped the book on her
knee, and laughed musically too, her head thrown back, and her black
hair dancing in little ringlets on her neck and her shaking shoulders.
When the laughter ceased, she picked up the book at once, and again
resuming a suitable expression, began the reading seriously. Sanin
could not get over his admiration; he was particularly astonished at
the marvellous way in which a face so ideally beautiful assumed
suddenly a comic, sometimes almost a vulgar expression. Gemma was less
successful in the parts of young girls—of so-called “_jeunes
premières_”; in the love-scenes in particular she failed; she was
conscious of this herself, and for that reason gave them a faint shade
of irony as though she did not quite believe in all these rapturous
vows and elevated sentiments, of which the author, however, was himself
rather sparing—so far as he could be.
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 Klüber, 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 fiancé!” 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.