Emil ran out to meet Sanin--he had been watching for his arrival over an hour--and hurriedly whispered into his ear that his mother knew nothing of the disagreeable incident of the day before, that he must not even hint of it to her, and that he was being sent to Klüber's shop again!... but that he wouldn't go there, but would hide somewhere! Communicating all this information in a few seconds, he suddenly fell on Sanin's shoulder, kissed him impulsively, and rushed away down the street. Gemma met Sanin in the shop; tried to say something and could not. Her lips were trembling a little, while her eyes were half-closed and turned away. He made haste to soothe her by the assurance that the whole affair had ended ... in utter nonsense.
'Has no one been to see you to-day?' she asked.
'A person did come to me and we had an explanation, and we ... we came to the most satisfactory conclusion.'
Gemma went back behind the counter.
'She does not believe me!' he thought ... he went into the next room, however, and there found Frau Lenore.
Her sick headache had passed off, but she was in a depressed state of mind. She gave him a smile of welcome, but warned him at the same time that he would be dull with her to-day, as she was not in a mood to entertain him. He sat down beside her, and noticed that her eyelids were red and swollen.
'What is wrong, Frau Lenore? You've never been crying, surely?'
'Oh!' she whispered, nodding her head towards the room where her daughter was.
'Don't speak of it ... aloud.'
'But what have you been crying for?'
'Ah, M'sieu Sanin, I don't know myself what for!'
'No one has hurt your feelings?'
'Oh no!... I felt very low all of a sudden. I thought of Giovanni Battista ... of my youth ... Then how quickly it had all passed away. I have grown old, my friend, and I can't reconcile myself to that anyhow. I feel I'm just the same as I was ... but old age--it's here! it is here!' Tears came into Frau Lenore's eyes. 'You look at me, I see, and wonder.... But you will get old too, my friend, and will find out how bitter it is!'
Sanin tried to comfort her, spoke of her children, in whom her own youth lived again, even attempted to scoff at her a little, declaring that she was fishing for compliments ... but she quite seriously begged him to leave off, and for the first time he realised that for such a sorrow, the despondency of old age, there is no comfort or cure; one has to wait till it passes off of itself. He proposed a game of tresette, and he could have thought of nothing better. She agreed at once and seemed to get more cheerful.