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.
The waiter came in and answered that a lady very particularly wished to see him.
'Gemma!' flashed into his head ... but the lady turned out to be her mother, Frau Lenore.
Directly she came in, she dropped at once into a chair and began to cry.
'What is the matter, my dear, good Madame Roselli?' began Sanin, sitting beside her and softly touching her hand. 'What has happened? calm yourself, I entreat you.'
'Ah, Herr Dimitri, I am very ... very miserable!'
'You are miserable?'
'Ah, very! Could I have foreseen such a thing? All of a sudden, like thunder from a clear sky ...'
She caught her breath.
'But what is it? Explain! Would you like a glass of water?'
'No, thank you.' Frau Lenore wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and began to cry with renewed energy. 'I know all, you see! All!'
'All? that is to say?'
'Everything that took place to-day! And the cause ... I know that too! You acted like an honourable man; but what an unfortunate combination of circumstances! I was quite right in not liking that excursion to Soden ... quite right!' (Frau Lenore had said nothing of the sort on the day of the excursion, but she was convinced now that she had foreseen 'all' even then.) 'I have come to you as to an honourable man, as to a friend, though I only saw you for the first time five days ago.... But you know I am a widow, a lonely woman.... My daughter ...'
Tears choked Frau Lenore's voice. Sanin did not know what to think. 'Your daughter?' he repeated.
'My daughter, Gemma,' broke almost with a groan from Frau Lenore, behind the tear-soaked handkerchief, 'informed me to-day that she would not marry Herr Klüber, and that I must refuse him!'
Sanin positively started back a little; he had not expected that.
'I won't say anything now,' Frau Lenore went on, 'of the disgrace of it, of its being something unheard of in the world for a girl to jilt her betrothed; but you see it's ruin for us, Herr Dimitri!' Frau Lenore slowly and carefully twisted up her handkerchief in a tiny, tiny little ball, as though she would enclose all her grief within it. 'We can't go on living on the takings of our shop, Herr Dimitri! and Herr Klüber is very rich, and will be richer still. And what is he to be refused for? Because he did not defend his betrothed? Allowing that was not very handsome on his part, still, he's a civilian, has not had a university education, and as a solid business man, it was for him to look with contempt on the frivolous prank of some unknown little officer. And what sort of insult was it, after all, Herr Dimitri?'