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.