Then Frau Lenore observed that Herr Klüber—as she uttered the name, she sighed faintly, tightened her lips, and hesitated—Herr Klüber, Gemma's former betrothed, already possessed an income of eight thousand guldens, and that with every year this sum would rapidly be increased; and what was his, Herr Sanin's income? 'Eight thousand guldens,' Sanin repeated deliberately.... 'That's in our money ... about fifteen thousand roubles.... My income is much smaller. I have a small estate in the province of Tula.... With good management, it might yield—and, in fact, it could not fail to yield—five or six thousand ... and if I go into the government service, I can easily get a salary of two thousand a year.'

'Into the service in Russia?' cried Frau Lenore, 'Then I must part with Gemma!'

'One might be able to enter in the diplomatic service,' Sanin put in; 'I have some connections.... There one's duties lie abroad. Or else, this is what one might do, and that's much the best of all: sell my estate and employ the sum received for it in some profitable undertaking; for instance, the improvement of your shop.' Sanin was aware that he was saying something absurd, but he was possessed by an incomprehensible recklessness! He looked at Gemma, who, ever since the 'practical' conversation began, kept getting up, walking about the room, and sitting down again—he looked at her—and no obstacle existed for him, and he was ready to arrange everything at once in the best way, if only she were not troubled!

'Herr Klüber, too, had intended to give me a small sum for the improvement of the shop,' Lenore observed after a slight hesitation.

'Mother! for mercy's sake, mother!' cried Gemma in Italian.

'These things must be discussed in good time, my daughter,' Frau Lenore replied in the same language. She addressed herself again to Sanin, and began questioning him as to the laws existing in Russia as to marriage, and whether there were no obstacles to contracting marriages with Catholics as in Prussia. (At that time, in 1840, all Germany still remembered the controversy between the Prussian Government and the Archbishop of Cologne upon mixed marriages.) When Frau Lenore heard that by marrying a Russian nobleman, her daughter would herself become of noble rank, she evinced a certain satisfaction. 'But, of course, you will first have to go to Russia?'

'Why?'

'Why? Why, to obtain the permission of your Tsar.'

Sanin explained to her that that was not at all necessary ... but that he might certainly have to go to Russia for a very short time before his marriage—(he said these words, and his heart ached painfully, Gemma watching him, knew it was aching, and blushed and grew dreamy)—and that he would try to take advantage of being in his own country to sell his estate ... in any case he would bring back the money needed.

'I would ask you to bring me back some good Astrakhan lambskin for a cape,' said Frau Lenore. 'They're wonderfully good, I hear, and wonderfully cheap!'