If Gemma had announced that she had brought with her cholera or death
itself, one can hardly imagine that Frau Lenore could have received the
news with greater despair. She immediately sat down in a corner, with
her face to the wall, and burst into floods of tears, positively
wailed, for all the world like a Russian peasant woman on the grave of
her husband or her son. For the first minute Gemma was so taken aback
that she did not even go up to her mother, but stood still like a
statue in the middle of the room; while Sanin was utterly stupefied, to
the point of almost bursting into tears himself! For a whole hour that
inconsolable wail went on—a whole hour! Pantaleone thought it better to
shut the outer door of the shop, so that no stranger should come;
luckily, it was still early. The old man himself did not know what to
think, and in any case, did not approve of the haste with which Gemma
and Sanin had acted; he could not bring himself to blame them, and was
prepared to give them his support in case of need: he greatly disliked
Klüber! Emil regarded himself as the medium of communication between
his friend and his sister, and almost prided himself on its all having
turned out so splendidly! He was positively unable to conceive why Frau
Lenore was so upset, and in his heart he decided on the spot that
women, even the best of them, suffer from a lack of reasoning power!
Sanin fared worst of all. Frau Lenore rose to a howl and waved him off
with her hands, directly he approached her; and it was in vain that he
attempted once or twice to shout aloud, standing at a distance, “I ask
you for your daughter’s hand!” Frau Lenore was particularly angry with
herself. “How could she have been so blind—have seen nothing? Had my
Giovann’ Battista been alive,” she persisted through her tears,
“nothing of this sort would have happened!” “Heavens, what’s it all
about?” thought Sanin; “why, it’s positively senseless!” He did not
dare to look at Gemma, nor could she pluck up courage to lift her eyes
to him. She restricted herself to waiting patiently on her mother, who
at first repelled even her….
At last, by degrees, the storm abated. Frau Lenore gave over weeping,
permitted Gemma to bring her out of the corner, where she sat huddled
up, to put her into an arm-chair near the window, and to give her some
orange-flower water to drink. She permitted Sanin—not to approach … oh,
no!—but, at any rate, to remain in the room—she had kept clamouring for
him to go away—and did not interrupt him when he spoke. Sanin
immediately availed himself of the calm as it set in, and displayed an
astounding eloquence. He could hardly have explained his intentions and
emotions with more fire and persuasive force even to Gemma herself.
Those emotions were of the sincerest, those intentions were of the
purest, like Almaviva’s in the _Barber of Seville_. He did not conceal
from Frau Lenore nor from himself the disadvantageous side of those
intentions; but the disadvantages were only apparent! It is true he was
a foreigner; they had not known him long, they knew nothing positive
about himself or his means; but he was prepared to bring forward all
the necessary evidence that he was a respectable person and not poor;
he would refer them to the most unimpeachable testimony of his
fellow-countrymen! He hoped Gemma would be happy with him, and that he
would be able to make up to her for the separation from her own
people!… The allusion to “separation”—the mere word “separation”—almost
spoiled the whole business…. Frau Lenore began to tremble all over and
move about uneasily…. Sanin hastened to observe that the separation
would only be temporary, and that, in fact, possibly it would not take
place at all!
Sanin’s eloquence was not thrown away. Frau Lenore began to glance at
him, though still with bitterness and reproach, no longer with the same
aversion and fury; then she suffered him to come near her, and even to
sit down beside her (Gemma was sitting on the other side); then she
fell to reproaching him,—not in looks only, but in words, which already
indicated a certain softening of heart; she fell to complaining, and
her complaints became quieter and gentler; they were interspersed with
questions addressed at one time to her daughter, and at another to
Sanin; then she suffered him to take her hand and did not at once pull
it away … then she wept again, but her tears were now quite of another
kind…. Then she smiled mournfully, and lamented the absence of Giovanni
Battista, but quite on different grounds from before…. An instant more
and the two criminals, Sanin and Gemma, were on their knees at her
feet, and she was laying her hands on their heads in turn; another
instant and they were embracing and kissing her, and Emil, his face
beaming rapturously, ran into the room and added himself to the group
so warmly united.
Pantaleone peeped into the room, smiled and frowned at the same time,
and going into the shop, opened the front door.