First loves -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Russian fiction -- Translations into English
Sanin told his friends he was going abroad, but he did not say where
exactly: the reader will readily conjecture that he made straight for
Frankfort. Thanks to the general extension of railways, on the fourth
day after leaving Petersburg he was there. He had not visited the place
since 1840. The hotel, the White Swan, was standing in its old place
and still flourishing, though no longer regarded as first class. The
_Zeile_, the principal street of Frankfort was little changed, but
there was not only no trace of Signora Roselli’s house, the very street
in which it stood had disappeared. Sanin wandered like a man in a dream
about the places once so familiar, and recognised nothing; the old
buildings had vanished; they were replaced by new streets of huge
continuous houses and fine villas; even the public garden, where that
last interview with Gemma had taken place, had so grown up and altered
that Sanin wondered if it really were the same garden. What was he to
do? How and where could he get information? Thirty years, no little
thing! had passed since those days. No one to whom he applied had even
heard of the name Roselli; the hotel-keeper advised him to have
recourse to the public library, there, he told him, he would find all
the old newspapers, but what good he would get from that, the
hotel-keeper owned he didn’t see. Sanin in despair made inquiries about
Herr Klüber. That name the hotel-keeper knew well, but there too no
success awaited him. The elegant shop-manager, after making much noise
in the world and rising to the position of a capitalist, had
speculated, was made bankrupt, and died in prison…. This piece of news
did not, however, occasion Sanin the slightest regret. He was beginning
to feel that his journey had been rather precipitate…. But, behold, one
day, as he was turning over a Frankfort directory, he came on the name:
Von Dönhof, retired major. He promptly took a carriage and drove to the
address, though why was this Von Dönhof certain to be that Dönhof, and
why even was the right Dönhof likely to be able to tell him any news of
the Roselli family? No matter, a drowning man catches at straws.
Sanin found the retired major von Dönhof at home, and in the
grey-haired gentleman who received him he recognised at once his
adversary of bygone days. Dönhof knew him too, and was positively
delighted to see him; he recalled to him his young days, the escapades
of his youth. Sanin heard from him that the Roselli family had long,
long ago emigrated to America, to New York; that Gemma had married a
merchant; that he, Dönhof, had an acquaintance also a merchant, who
would probably know her husband’s address, as he did a great deal of
business with America. Sanin begged Dönhof to consult this friend, and,
to his delight, Dönhof brought him the address of Gemma’s husband, Mr.
Jeremy Slocum, New York, Broadway, No. 501. Only this address dated
from the year 1863.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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