Part 12

“And I too do not intend to go on with the duel,” cried Dönhof, and he too threw his pistol on the ground. “And more than that, I am prepared to own that I was in the wrong—the day before yesterday.”

He moved uneasily, and hesitatingly held out his hand. Sanin went rapidly up to him and shook it. Both the young men looked at each other with a smile, and both their faces flushed crimson.

“Bravi! bravi!” Pantaleone roared suddenly as if he had gone mad, and clapping his hands, he rushed like a whirlwind from behind the bush; while the doctor, who had been sitting on one side on a felled tree, promptly rose, poured the water out of the jug and walked off with a lazy, rolling step out of the wood.

“Honour is satisfied, and the duel is over!” von Richter announced.

“Fuori!” Pantaleone boomed once more, through old associations.

When he had exchanged bows with the officers, and taken his seat in the carriage, Sanin certainly felt all over him, if not a sense of pleasure, at least a certain lightness of heart, as after an operation is over; but there was another feeling astir within him too, a feeling akin to shame…. The duel, in which he had just played his part, struck him as something false, a got-up formality, a common officers’ and students’ farce. He recalled the phlegmatic doctor, he recalled how he had grinned, that is, wrinkled up his nose when he saw him coming out of the wood almost arm-in-arm with Baron Dönhof. And afterwards when Pantaleone had paid him the four crowns due to him … Ah! there was something nasty about it!

Yes, Sanin was a little conscience-smitten and ashamed … though, on the other hand, what was there for him to have done? Could he have left the young officer’s insolence unrebuked? could he have behaved like Herr Klüber? He had stood up for Gemma, he had championed her … that was so; and yet, there was an uneasy pang in his heart, and he was conscience-smitten, and even ashamed.

Not so Pantaleone—he was simply in his glory! He was suddenly possessed by a feeling of pride. A victorious general, returning from the field of battle he has won, could not have looked about him with greater self-satisfaction. Sanin’s demeanour during the duel filled him with enthusiasm. He called him a hero, and would not listen to his exhortations and even his entreaties. He compared him to a monument of marble or of bronze, with the statue of the commander in Don Juan! For himself he admitted he had been conscious of some perturbation of mind, “but, of course, I am an artist,” he observed; “I have a highly-strung nature, while you are the son of the snows and the granite rocks.”

Sanin was positively at a loss how to quiet the jubilant artist.

Almost at the same place in the road where two hours before they had come upon Emil, he again jumped out from behind a tree, and, with a cry of joy upon his lips, waving his cap and leaping into the air, he rushed straight at the carriage, almost fell under the wheel, and, without waiting for the horses to stop, clambered up over the carriage-door and fairly clung to Sanin.

“You are alive, you are not wounded!” he kept repeating. “Forgive me, I did not obey you, I did not go back to Frankfort … I could not! I waited for you here … Tell me how was it? You … killed him?”

Sanin with some difficulty pacified Emil and made him sit down.

With great verbosity, with evident pleasure, Pantaleone communicated to him all the details of the duel, and, of course, did not omit to refer again to the monument of bronze and the statue of the commander. He even rose from his seat and, standing with his feet wide apart to preserve his equilibrium, folding his arm on his chest and looking contemptuously over his shoulder, gave an ocular representation of the commander—Sanin! Emil listened with awe, occasionally interrupting the narrative with an exclamation, or swiftly getting up and as swiftly kissing his heroic friend.

The carriage wheels rumbled over the paved roads of Frankfort, and stopped at last before the hotel where Sanin was living.

Escorted by his two companions, he went up the stairs, when suddenly a woman came with hurried steps out of the dark corridor; her face was hidden by a veil, she stood still, facing Sanin, wavered a little, gave a trembling sigh, at once ran down into the street and vanished, to the great astonishment of the waiter, who explained that “that lady had been for over an hour waiting for the return of the foreign gentleman.” Momentary as was the apparition, Sanin recognised Gemma. He recognised her eyes under the thick silk of her brown veil.

“Did Fräulein Gemma know, then?”… he said slowly in a displeased voice in German, addressing Emil and Pantaleone, who were following close on his heels.

Emil blushed and was confused.

“I was obliged to tell her all,” he faltered; “she guessed, and I could not help it…. But now that’s of no consequence,” he hurried to add eagerly, “everything has ended so splendidly, and she has seen you well and uninjured!”

Sanin turned away.

“What a couple of chatterboxes you are!” he observed in a tone of annoyance, as he went into his room and sat down on a chair.

“Don’t be angry, please,” Emil implored.

“Very well, I won’t be angry”—(Sanin was not, in fact, angry—and, after all, he could hardly have desired that Gemma should know nothing about it). “Very well … that’s enough embracing. You get along now. I want to be alone. I’m going to sleep. I’m tired.”

“An excellent idea!” cried Pantaleone. “You need repose! You have fully earned it, noble signor! Come along, Emilio! On tip-toe! On tip-toe! Sh—sh—sh!”

When he said he wanted to go to sleep, Sanin had simply wished to get rid of his companions; but when he was left alone, he was really aware of considerable weariness in all his limbs; he had hardly closed his eyes all the preceding night, and throwing himself on his bed he fell immediately into a sound sleep.

XXIII

He slept for some hours without waking. Then he began to dream that he was once more fighting a duel, that the antagonist standing facing him was Herr Klüber, and on a fir-tree was sitting a parrot, and this parrot was Pantaleone, and he kept tapping with his beak: one, one, one!

“One … one … one!” he heard the tapping too distinctly; he opened his eyes, raised his head … some one was knocking at his door.

“Come in!” called Sanin.