Who does not know what a German dinner is like? Watery soup with knobby
dumplings and pieces of cinnamon, boiled beef dry as cork, with white
fat attached, slimy potatoes, soft beetroot and mashed horseradish, a
bluish eel with French capers and vinegar, a roast joint with jam, and
the inevitable “_Mehlspeise_,” something of the nature of a pudding
with sourish red sauce; but to make up, the beer and wine first-rate!
With just such a dinner the tavernkeeper at Soden regaled his
customers. The dinner, itself, however, went off satisfactorily. No
special liveliness was perceptible, certainly; not even when Herr
Klüber proposed the toast “What we like!” (Was wir lieben!) But at
least everything was decorous and seemly. After dinner, coffee was
served, thin, reddish, typically German coffee. Herr Klüber, with true
gallantry, asked Gemma’s permission to smoke a cigar…. But at this
point suddenly something occurred, unexpected, and decidedly
unpleasant, and even unseemly!
At one of the tables near were sitting several officers of the garrison
of the Maine. From their glances and whispering together it was easy to
perceive that they were struck by Gemma’s beauty; one of them, who had
probably stayed in Frankfort, stared at her persistently, as at a
figure familiar to him; he obviously knew who she was. He suddenly got
up, and glass in hand—all the officers had been drinking hard, and the
cloth before them was crowded with bottles—approached the table at
which Gemma was sitting. He was a very young flaxen-haired man, with a
rather pleasing and even attractive face, but his features were
distorted with the wine he had drunk, his cheeks were twitching, his
blood-shot eyes wandered, and wore an insolent expression. His
companions at first tried to hold him back, but afterwards let him go,
interested apparently to see what he would do, and how it would end.
Slightly unsteady on his legs, the officer stopped before Gemma, and in
an unnaturally screaming voice, in which, in spite of himself, an
inward struggle could be discerned, he articulated, “I drink to the
health of the prettiest confectioner in all Frankfort, in all the world
(he emptied his glass), and in return I take this flower, picked by her
divine little fingers!” He took from the table a rose that lay beside
Gemma’s plate. At first she was astonished, alarmed, and turned
fearfully white … then alarm was replaced by indignation; she suddenly
crimsoned all over, to her very hair—and her eyes, fastened directly on
the offender, at the same time darkened and flamed, they were filled
with black gloom, and burned with the fire of irrepressible fury. The
officer must have been confused by this look; he 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 calling upon him. Sanin replied with a short bow, and hurriedly
returned to his friends.
Herr Klüber pretended he had not noticed either Sanin’s absence nor his
interview with the officers; he was urging on the coachman, who was
putting in the horses, and was furiously angry at his deliberateness.
Gemma too said nothing to Sanin, she did not even look at him; from her
knitted brows, from her pale and compressed lips, from her very
immobility it could be seen that she was suffering inwardly. Only Emil
obviously wanted to speak to Sanin, wanted to question him; he had seen
Sanin go up to the officers, he had seen him give them something
white—a scrap of paper, a note, or a card…. The poor boy’s heart was
beating, his cheeks burned, he was ready to throw himself on Sanin’s
neck, ready to cry, or to go with him at once to crush all those
accursed officers into dust and ashes! He controlled himself, however,
and did no more than watch intently every movement of his noble Russian
friend.
The coachman had at last harnessed the horses; the whole party seated
themselves in the carriage. Emil climbed on to the box, after
Tartaglia; he was more comfortable there, and had not Klüber, whom he
could hardly bear the sight of, sitting opposite to him.
The whole way home Herr Klüber discoursed … and he discoursed alone; no
one, absolutely no one, opposed him, nor did any one agree with him. He
especially insisted on the point that they had been wrong in not
following his advice when he suggested dining in a shut-up
summer-house. There no unpleasantness could have occurred! Then he
expressed a few decided and even liberal sentiments on the unpardonable
way in which the government favoured the military, neglected their
discipline, and did not sufficiently consider the civilian element in
society (_das bürgerliche Element in der Societät_!), and foretold that
in time this cause would give rise to discontent, which might well pass
into revolution, of which (here he dropped a sympathetic though severe
sigh) France had given them a sorrowful example! He added, however,
that he personally had the greatest respect for authority, and never …
no, never!… could be a revolutionist—but he could not but express his …
disapprobation at the sight of such licence! Then he made a few general
observations on morality and immorality, good-breeding, and the sense
of dignity.
During all these lucubrations, Gemma, who even while they were walking
before dinner had not seemed quite pleased with Herr Klüber, and had
therefore held rather aloof from Sanin, and had been, as it were,
embarrassed by his presence—Gemma was unmistakably ashamed of her
betrothed! Towards the end of the drive she was positively wretched,
and though, as before, she did not address a word to Sanin, she
suddenly flung an imploring glance at him…. He, for his part, felt much
more sorry for her than indignant with Herr Klüber; he was even
secretly, half-consciously, delighted at what had happened in the
course of that day, even though he had every reason to expect a
challenge next morning.
This miserable _partie de plaisir_ came to an end at last. As he helped
Gemma out of the carriage at the confectionery shop, Sanin without a
word put into her hand the rose he had recovered. She flushed crimson,
pressed his hand, and instantly hid the rose. He did not want to go
into the house, though the evening was only just beginning. She did not
even invite him. Moreover Pantaleone, who came out on the steps,
announced that Frau Lenore was asleep. Emil took a shy good-bye of
Sanin; he felt as it were in awe of him; he greatly admired him. Klüber
saw Sanin to his lodging, and took leave of him stiffly. The
well-regulated German, for all his self-confidence, felt awkward. And
indeed every one felt awkward.
But in Sanin this feeling of awkwardness soon passed off. It was
replaced by a vague, but pleasant, even triumphant feeling. He walked
up and down his room, whistling, and not caring to think about
anything, and was very well pleased with himself.