First loves -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Russian fiction -- Translations into English
Sanin laughed. “Oh, very well. Listen, my dearest boy—(Emil gave a
little skip of delight)—listen; _there_ you understand, there, you will
say, that everything shall be done exactly as is wished—(Emil
compressed his lips and nodded solemnly)—and as for me … what are you
doing to-morrow, my dear boy?”
“I? what am I doing? What would you like me to do?”
“If you can, come to me early in the morning—and we will walk about the
country round Frankfort till evening…. Would you like to?”
Emil gave another little skip. “I say, what in the world could be
jollier? Go a walk with you—why, it’s simply glorious! I’ll be sure to
come!”
“And if they won’t let you?”
“They will let me!”
“Listen … Don’t say _there_ that I asked you to come for the whole
day.”
“Why should I? But I’ll get away all the same! What does it matter?”
Emil warmly kissed Sanin, and ran away.
Sanin walked up and down the room a long while, and went late to bed.
He gave himself up to the same delicate and sweet sensations, the same
joyous thrill at facing a new life. Sanin was very glad that the idea
had occurred to him to invite Emil to spend the next day with him; he
was like his sister. “He will recall her,” was his thought.
But most of all, he marvelled how he could have been yesterday other
than he was to-day. It seemed to him that he had loved Gemma for all
time; and that he had loved her just as he loved her to-day.
XXVI
At eight o’clock next morning, Emil arrived at Sanin’s hotel leading
Tartaglia by a string. Had he sprung of German parentage, he could not
have shown greater practicality. He had told a lie at home; he had said
he was going for a walk with Sanin till lunch-time, and then going to
the shop. While Sanin was dressing, Emil began to talk to him, rather
hesitatingly, it is true, about Gemma, about her rupture with Herr
Klüber; but Sanin preserved an austere silence in reply, and Emil,
looking as though he understood why so serious a matter should not be
touched on lightly, did not return to the subject, and only assumed
from time to time an intense and even severe expression.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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